


the only right i have wronged

by gendernoncompliant



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Be Careful What You Wish For, Bisexual Disasters, Case Fic, Established Relationship, F/M, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Multi, Parallel Universes, Pegging, Season 3, Timeline Shenanigans, Trans Character, eventual OT3, set just after s3e2, shameless wish(verse) fulfillment, trans man Nathan, wish granting trouble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:54:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 79,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24140920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gendernoncompliant/pseuds/gendernoncompliant
Summary: Nathan rolls his eyes. A smile plays across his face and before Duke can ask what the joke is, he finds himself tugged forward by the belt loops. Suddenly, Nathan’s barely a breath away from him.For a second, Duke’s brain stops working entirely. When it catches up, a dozen possibilities hit him all at once. A prank? A trouble? Another shapeshifter? The start to a really weird, really intimate fistfight? Hell, maybe he’s still at the Gull, passed out over the counter, having an extremely vivid dream. But Nathan feels real—as real as he did a decade ago, before the fight that tore them apart.(or: Duke finds out the hard way that a past with Nathan could mean a future without Audrey.)
Relationships: Duke Crocker/Audrey Parker/Nathan Wuornos, Duke Crocker/Nathan Wuornos
Comments: 183
Kudos: 97





	1. the life that you could have had

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A ruffling in the feathers of the universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of the fic and all chapters are lyrics from the "The Right Wrong" by The Dear Hunter--a song about the allure and the consequences of changing the past. It was a huge inspiration for this fic and I highly encourage you listen to it.

“No. We don’t need your help on this one, Duke.” Nathan tells him, his voice cold and final.

All things considered, Duke would have liked it better if he’d screamed it. The flippant dismissal gets under his skin, makes him want to kick up a fuss, start a fight. Anything to get Nathan to look up from his damn paperwork.

Audrey would back him up, if she were here. But Audrey’s two rooms away, talking with Stan about the details of the missing person case that Nathan refuses to let Duke in on.

(When Duke passed them on the way in, Audrey had cast him a soft smile that rung his heart like a bell. It was always like that, with Audrey. He’d throw an anchor around the moon if she asked him to.)

The dark shape of the tattoo peeks out from under Nathan’s rolled-up sleeve when he reaches for another file on his desk. The flash of skin feels deliberate. A threat. Disappointment leaves Duke feeling sick; he really thought they were getting better, working it out. Right up until the moment Nathan showed up with _that_ on his arm.

Keeping his expression pointedly pleasant, Duke’s voice rings out just a little too sharp when he chimes, “Seems to me like you need all the help you can get.” He casts a glance around the empty room and rocks up onto the balls of his feet. “I mean, judging by your bustling Troubles Victim Unit.”

Nathan’s impatience borders on disgust. Voice level, he says, “Audrey and I have it under control,” as if they aren’t running against the clock, here. As if the Hunter isn’t less than two months away, looming over them.

“Yeah,” Duke scoffs without thinking, “And how long’s that gonna last?” It’s not like Duke wants to think about the possibility of losing Audrey, either. Honestly, they’re wasting their time running around putting out Haven’s various fires, as far as Duke’s concerned. But if this is what Audrey wants to do, then fine. They’ll do it. Duke can help. He wants to help. And Nathan burying his head in the sand doesn’t benefit any of them, least of all Audrey.

Nathan doesn’t react to the comment at all the way Duke expects him to. Instead of anger or denial, Nathan’s brow wrinkles in frustrated confusion and he barks, “The hell is that supposed to mean?” Finally, Duke has his undivided attention, and he drops the file in his hand back onto the desk with a weighted thwap.

Duke almost, almost blows it. He catches the words right before they fall off the tip of his tongue.

Understanding crashes like a wave. She hasn’t told him. She’s running on a deadline that’s measured in _days_ and she still hasn’t told him. Duke’s throat ties itself in a knot and he settles back on his heels.

“Forget it,” Duke murmurs, casting his gaze to the floor. The secret crawls along the roof of his mouth. It isn’t his to tell, he reminds himself.

Nathan considers him for another moment before huffing a repulsed little snort and shuffling the papers on his desk. “Whatever,” he mutters. He does nothing to hide the impatience in his voice when he says, “You’re not a police officer, Duke.” Under his breath, he adds, “As if I’d let you anywhere near the troubled, anyway.”

One sentence and Duke’s been flung overboard, with Nathan sawing at his lifeline.

Self-righteous anger and hideous guilt get tangled together in his chest. “I didn’t hurt anyone,” he argues—automatic, instinctive—even as he shudders from the memory of the gravedigger throwing himself on his knife. The sickening sound. The sudden weight of him against the hilt. More than that, more than anything, Duke remembers the shocking blue of his eyes and how they’d reminded him so much of Nathan’s.

No one ever asked him how it _felt_.

“You’re a timebomb,” Nathan tells him. “I’m not waiting around for you to pick up the family business.”

All this over a legacy Duke wants nothing to do with.

But of course, no one asked him what he wanted.

Duke forces down the heartbreak. He forces down the memories of the people they used to be, back when they thought the troubles were nothing but ghost stories. He white knuckles the rage so he doesn’t have to look at the part of himself that’s threatening to fracture.

“You only want me to be like my father,” he says, voice low and steady. He leans down to thump the polished face of the police badge on Nathan’s desk. “Because you grew up to be just like yours.”

It isn’t fair. It isn’t kind. It isn’t even entirely true. But Duke’s sick of the high ground.

He’s sick of being the place Nathan Wuornos goes to hate himself.

The atmosphere of the room shifts. Nathan’s feigned disinterest drops into something hot and furious. The familiarity of Nathan’s anger is almost comforting, but it’s a hollow victory.

“Get out of my office,” Nathan seethes, his voice taut with a barely contained ferocity.

“Whatever you say, Chief.” Duke chews the word, draws it out.

Duke never makes it out of these conversations without some kind of exit wound. Petty and selfish as it is, there’s an ugly sort of satisfaction in firing a shot back.

It doesn’t last.

* * *

Duke Crocker has never been a man for regret or nostalgia. He’s a live-in-the-moment kind of guy.

Which is what makes the half-drunken disaster he finds himself in so cosmically hysterical. Now, posted up in a back-corner booth of the Gull drinking his sorrows and tipsy before noon, the past is all he can think about.

Growing up was never good, but there was Nathan. There were late nights spent sneaking Nathan out his bedroom window and biking to the beach. There was the first time they kissed in the back of the bronco and all the times after that. They were stupid kids pretending to be kings in a town that turned its back on the both of them. It was never going to last. In Haven, nothing ever stays.

Sometimes, the only language they had for loving each other came in the form of not leaving.

Technically, Duke ruined that first—the day he sailed out of Haven. But Nathan refusing to come with him had felt like its own kind of leaving. They left each other, in different ways.

It was naïve, he realizes now, to think they might find their way back.

“Damn it, Nathan,” he sighs into his drink.

Around him, the Gull bustles with the lunch rush. The background babble of customers and clink of dishes only reminds him how obscenely early in the day it is for him to be having his melancholy little pity party.

All the fight’s been ironed out of him. Propping his head up on his hand, he runs his fingers mindlessly along the brim of his glass. Arguing with Nathan used to leave him fuming and riled up for hours. These days, it only exhausts him.

Everything comes back to the fishing trip, in the end. Even when Nathan doesn’t say it out loud. Duke can claim he never hurt anyone, but it all rings hollow when he’s the reason Nathan doesn’t hurt at all, anymore.

Duke’s never really blamed Nathan for keeping him at arm’s length, after that. Never really pushed back all that hard, even when Nathan’s ire felt unearned. Some part of Duke always felt like he deserved it.

He muffles a sad little laugh against the heel of his hand. He must be drunker than he thought, caught up reminiscing like this. It’s an old wound; he usually tries not to pick at it.

“I wish that fishing trip had never fucking happened,” he sighs before downing the rest of his glass. Sliding out from behind the booth, he feels drunker standing up than he did sitting down. Still entirely more sober than he’d like to be, given the circumstances. But, like it or not (and he doesn’t), he’s got the whole day ahead of him.

Duke’s halfway to the counter when the room pitches. Both feet planted on solid ground, he’s hit with the sudden feeling like he’s missed a step going downstairs. Except it’s more like the stairs missed _him_ —like he stayed still, and the world staggered around him. This seasick heave; a ruffling in the feathers of the universe. Everything ripples and settles and seems exactly the same.

But it’s never that simple, in Haven.

The noise in the room doesn’t so much as hiccup. Not one patron looks up from their drink. Conversation goes on unbothered, everyone laughing and chatting and wandering through the doors.

As much as he’d like to believe that it’s all in his head—that he just accidentally crossed the line between tipsy and hammered without noticing—something just feels wrong. Even the room looks odd: lit in a cooler white, like all the bulbs have been swapped out. He rubs his eyes.

He’s been in this town too goddamn long.

Duke decides his best bet is sobering up and finding Audrey. If there really was some kind of supernatural, spectral earthquake rolling through town, she definitely would have felt it. He heads for the front door only to let out a muffled curse when he bangs his hip against an empty chair as he passes.

“Quit moving my goddamn tables around,” he grumbles to no one—to the long-gone customer who scooted the tables together only to put them back not-quite-right.

Absently rubbing the bruise, Duke finds an even worse surprise waiting for him in the parking lot.

“Again?” Duke asks the sky. “Already?”

The bronco’s engine rumbles to a stop as Nathan gets out of the car. Nathan might technically be on the shortlist of people who could be helpful in this situation but considering how he seems to make it a point to be actively _unhelpful_ wherever Duke is concerned, Duke’s not exactly thrilled to see him.

They already had one fight, today. Duke would much rather table whatever the hell this is until later.

It’s not as though Duke actually expects Nathan to let him get away with outright ignoring him, but the way Nathan puts himself bodily in Duke’s path feels a little childish, to be honest. Duke skids to a stop with an exasperated expression. “Listen, Nate,” he urges—aiming for diplomacy but landing closer to frustration, “Whatever you’re here to arrest me for, it really needs to wait.”

“Uh, yeah,” Nathan snorts. “You’re under arrest for not loading the dishwasher,” he taunts in an exaggeratedly stern tone.

Duke’s momentum vanishes. “Dishwasher?”

Nathan rolls his eyes. A smile plays across his face and before Duke can ask what the joke is, he finds himself tugged forward by the belt loops. Suddenly, Nathan’s barely a breath away from him.

For a second, Duke’s brain stops working entirely. When it catches up, a dozen possibilities hit him all at once. A prank? A trouble? Another shapeshifter? The start to a really weird, really intimate fistfight? Hell, maybe he’s still at the Gull, passed out over the counter, having an extremely vivid dream. But Nathan feels real—as real as he did a decade ago, before the fight that tore them apart.

It doesn’t feel like a dream at all. It does, however, feel a lot like a fever—especially when Nathan drags his hands up Duke’s sides. All he can think about is the bergamot and spice of Nathan’s aftershave.

“Your shift over, yet?” Nathan asks, right up against his mouth. He doesn’t give Duke the chance to answer before he presses forward and closes the distance between them.

Duke doesn’t mean to bite him, he really doesn’t.

His wires get crossed, is all. The part of his brain responsible for _ask him what the hell he thinks he’s doing_ and the one frantically looping _oh fuck, kiss him back, kiss him back_ crash into each other and he tries to do both at the same time, with equal amounts of unsuccess.

Nathan startles backwards with a hissed _ouch_. He touches his lip as though checking for blood. (Dramatic of him, Duke can’t help but think, in the instant before he realizes what the reaction actually _means_.)

Content to find himself unmaimed, Nathan levels Duke with a playful, “Geez, what was that for?”

“You felt that?” Duke asks. His heart pounds for a dozen different reasons—the most intense of which probably being the least important.

Chuckling, Nathan drawls, “Uh, yeah, wasn’t exactly a love nip.”

Duke expects him to pull away, but he doesn’t. Instead, both hands find Duke’s hips and he dragged back into Nathan’s orbit. He’s barely able to catch his breath when Nathan’s mouth ghosts along the line of his jaw.

“That excited to see me, huh?” Nathan teases, and Duke shivers from the low, heated undertone to his voice.

Duke’s seen stranger troubles than this—whatever this is. Some kind of knock-off Cupid, maybe. Maybe Nathan was set to fall for the next person he saw, and Duke just happened to be in the way.

But an infatuation trouble wouldn’t explain Nathan being able to _feel_ him.

Duke doesn’t step out of the circle of Nathan’s arms, but he doesn’t lean any closer, either. He just lingers, trying to catch his breath.

He’ll have an excuse for why he didn’t shove Nathan off by the time he needs one. He was humoring him, or he didn’t know if the trouble might get violent, or he was just too shocked. Whatever.

He tries to be tactful when he clumsily asks, “And, uh, exactly how long have you been… feeling?”

Nathan leans back far enough to frown at him. “That’s a weird question. Uh, lemme check my calendar.”

“ _Nathan_ ,” Duke urges. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He almost drops them to Nathan’s waist, hovering just an inch away before he reconsiders. It’s too _weird_. They were at each other’s throats a few hours ago. He winds up with his arms folded awkwardly in the space between them, unable to put them down.

“C’mon, what about your trouble?”

Nathan finally steps back. He huffs out a fond but irritated, “Haha. Very funny.” Leaning against the hood of the bronco, Nathan wears the expression of a man who’s sick of repeating himself, even though Duke is _very_ certain they’ve never had anything even resembling this conversation.

With forced patience, Nathan explains, “I hit my head sledding. It was not,” he waves his hand, “a ‘ _trouble_ ’. It was brain damage and I’m _fine_ , now.”

Duke doesn’t know where to start. And, evidently, he takes too long to answer, because Nathan rolls his eyes and adds, “The troubles are an old wives’ tale. You know that.”

Whatever this is, it’s nothing so simple as some kind of love potion trouble.

He needs to find Audrey, _now_.

“Right,” Duke agrees, forcing a false levity into his tone. His fastest way out is through. “Yep. Brain damage. Silly me.”

Nathan raises an eyebrow at him. “Speaking of brain damage,” he teases, “you okay?”

“Yeah,” Duke answers, a little too fast. “I’m great. But listen, I’ve—uh, I’ve gotta run some errands for the bar. Restock and stuff. Sorry to just bounce, but—” He takes a few steps backwards, in the direction of his car. He knows he should just take the excuse and run before he makes Nathan (or Not-Nathan, as the case may be) any more suspicious. Still, he can’t resist adding, “Did we—did we get in a fight, this morning?”

Nathan’s expression drops from patiently amused to actually concerned. “I haven’t seen you all day.” Taking a step towards him, he asks, “Seriously, Duke, you good?” He reaches out for Duke’s arm. It’s a thoughtless, gentle gesture.

Duke pulls back in the half-second before Nathan can touch him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Duke promises. He does everything he can to maintain his façade of calm. “Guess I’ve just been—burning the candle at both ends.” He shoots Nathan what he hopes is a reassuring smile as he fumbles for his keys. “You know how the restaurant business is. See ya later, Nate.”

“Uh, okay. Bye?” Nathan lingers for a moment before shaking off his visible confusion and getting back into his truck. He waves goodbye before pulling out of the parking lot and heading who knows where.

Duke’s head spins. Gripping the steering wheel, he counts his breaths—in for eight, hold for four, out for eight, hold for four. He’s fine. It’s okay. Whatever this is, Audrey will figure it out and Nathan will be back to his unfriendly self by dinner.

It’s fine.

It’s not until he leans back in his seat that the sign above the door of the bar finally comes into view.

The Second Chance.

* * *

Duke breaks at least three separate traffic laws in his rush to the station. The irony isn’t lost on him.

First Nathan, then the Gull. Today is shaping up to be way weirder than Duke had previously accounted for, and Duke spent half the morning expecting to be involved in a missing person case.

He parallel parks somewhere that’s definitely not a proper spot and takes the stairs two at a time. By the time he stumbles into Nathan and Audrey’s office, he’s a little out of breath. He spent the entire drive over trying to come up with a tactful way to explain to Audrey that her boyfriend (Not boyfriend? Duke can’t keep up with them.) planted one on him. He still hasn’t really come up with a good way to thread that needle.

He hovers breathlessly in the doorway, trying to figure out where to start.

“Oh, hey Duke,” Audrey comments, breezy and impersonal. Which, okay, ouch. He’s not sure what he did to deserve the brush off, but it’s a problem for another time.

“Hey,” he starts, but before he can get any further, Audrey interrupts him.

“Nathan already went home for the day,” she says without even glancing up from her paperwork. “Just missed him.”

Duke frowns. It’s like he’s watching a bad cut of a movie and some important establishing shot’s been left out. “Uh, yeah, I bumped into him on the way here.”

She does look up from her work, then, a concerned expression on her face. “Oh, are you here to report something?”

Duke was willing to chalk the first half of this conversation up to a strange misunderstanding, but now he’s sure that something is wrong. “No, I came to talk to you.”

“Oh. Uh, thanks, Duke,” she stutters awkwardly. She glances around the empty office like she’s looking for an escape hatch. “But now really isn’t a good time. Always nice to see you, but I’ve got a lot of paperwork to do. You know how it is.”

She’s never this distant with him. Duke doesn’t know what he _did_ , unless maybe Nathan told her about their fight—that is, before he got memory wiped. Whatever it is, Duke really isn’t in the mood for jumping through their various interpersonal hoops.

“Look, if you’re mad at me just tell me,” Duke sighs, feeling flustered and off-topic. They don’t have time for the passive-aggressive, _please call again later_ bullshit.

She shifts in her seat, looking as confused and uncomfortable as he feels. Tapping the end of her pen against the desk, she says, “Sorry, I guess I’m just not used to seeing you without Nathan.”

The picture finally snaps into focus and Duke feels dread drop him into freefall. He understands, but he can’t make it make sense.

“You should be immune,” he blurts before his brain has time to catch up to his mouth.

Audrey’s expression goes pinched. “Sorry?”

Duke huffs out an attempt at a laugh so thin, even he doesn’t believe it. Shaking his head, he says, “If this is a joke, it really isn’t funny, Audrey.”

She casts him a tight smile, shaking her head. “Uh, not sure I get what you mean.”

“The troubles,” Duke pushes, feeling desperate and unhinged. Whatever this is, he cannot deal with it without her. “You’re always immune.”

Audrey laughs, but the sound comes out tense and awkward, like she’s placating him until she can shoo him out of the room. “What, like that town ghost story?”

Duke thinks of how many times he’s watched Audrey on the other side of this conversation, trying to convince some in-denial local the truth about what’s happening to them.

“Jesus, is this what you feel like all the time?” He sighs, shaking his head. Predictably, the question only makes her look more baffled.

Rushing to backpedal, Duke mumbles a hurried, “Never mind. Um—sorry. Sorry to bother you. I’ll show myself out. Have a good night.”

“Sure,” Audrey says, although she still sounds skeptical. “Tell Nathan I said hi.”

Duke all but bolts out of the station. Whatever this is, Audrey should be able to see right through it. Very few things in Haven are ever constant, but _that_ is. Regardless of what they’re facing, Audrey is immune to it. She’s the first one to see the kind of strangeness that the rest of them get caught up in. She should have been an ally in this mess, someone who could help him get to the bottom of it.

“I hate this town,” he grumbles under his breath as he climbs back into his car.

It’s too much to hope this is some kind of bizarre bender. Consciously, he knows that. But it’s hard to resist the pull of the simplest answer. Maybe it is just a dream. Or the most boring acid trip he’s ever been on. Maybe it _is_ a trouble, and Strangely Affectionate Nathan and Uncomfortably Distant Audrey will have it figured out and taken care of by the time he wakes up in the morning.

Okay. Okay, so he doesn’t have Audrey with him on this one. At least, not right now. But there might be something in the Crocker family journal about it, so he’s got a place to start.

“Let’s hope dear old Dad did something right, for once.”

* * *

The sun has almost crept beyond the horizon by the time Duke gets to the docks. It bathes the sky in a purpling light. Stark shadows cut across the pier as he pulls into his usual parking space. He allows himself a moment’s relief in familiarity. Sighing, he leans back against the seat, stares up the roof, and goes through the process of counting his breaths again. Whatever this is, they can figure it out.

He can figure it out.

He steps out of his car and makes it halfway down the marina before he realizes that the boat sitting in his slip isn’t the Rouge.

“You’re kidding me.”

Maybe it’s fine. Maybe he just wasn’t paying enough attention, didn’t park in the lot he thought he parked in. Maybe the Rouge is just fine, just a little ways away, and he’s just panicked because of the weirdness of the day.

But he can’t see her familiar mast anywhere in the shadowy row of boats bobbing in the surf.

“No, no, no, _come on_!” He barks, kicking his tire in helpless frustration.

His attention gets drawn halfway down the pier by the sounds of someone loading heavy boxes into the trunk of a car. He almost ignores it, but an instinctual glance toward the source of the noise has him double-taking.

It’s Dwight.

Oh, thank god, it’s Dwight.

Crossing to him, Duke calls out, “Hey! Squatch!” on his way over.

Dwight turns, although he doesn’t return the greeting particularly warmly. “Can I help you?” He asks.

That’s fair, Duke supposes. They worked together to solve the mystery of the Hunter, but it wasn’t too long before that that Duke was getting wacked with _heavy metal trunks_ and Kamehamehaing Dwight into the water.

Trotting up to Dwight, he swallows whatever pride he might have left and bumbles out, “Where—alright, this is gonna sound stupid. And I know it sounds stupid. Stick with me. Where do I live?”

The question lands about as well as he expected it to.

Dwight casts him a concerned, “You hit your head?”

“You know what? Maybe,” Duke admits on a helpless, sharp laugh. “I’ve… I have had a weird day.”

Dwight nods sagely. “Haven thing.”

Duke feels a rush of something he’s too careful to call relief, just yet. “You know about the troubles, right?” He asks. There’s no point beating around the bush.

Dwight casts him an easy grin. _Too_ easy. Duke knows a sales pitch when he sees one. “Kinda hard to miss, livin’ in this town.”

“Yeah,” Duke agrees cautiously.

Dwight claps him on the shoulder. “Every town’s got it’s urban legends, I guess,” he comments, breezy and unbothered, as he closes the trunk with a thump.

This is exactly what Duke was afraid of. “No, no, no, Squatch, _please_ ,” he groans. “I cannot do this again.”

“What, exactly, are we doing?” Dwight asks. He regards Duke with an impersonally pleasant expression, like he’s trying to be nice so that Duke will say his piece and then leave him alone.

The detached attitude actually stings, just a little bit. The two of them were on rocky footing for a while, there, after the whole fiasco over the Crocker journal, but he thought they were making progress. “C’mon, Dwight,” he urges. “I thought we were friends again.”

“Were we friends?” Dwight asks. The question isn’t pointed, exactly. A little sarcastic, maybe. But there’s an earnestness to it that Duke doesn’t like. Everything about today is giving him the heebie-jeebies.

“Dude, come on,” he says with an anxious attempt at a laugh. “If you’re still pissed about the boat thing, I gotta say, you kinda had it coming. I mean, you hit me first. You’re not really still mad, are you?”

Narrowing his eyes at Duke, Dwight offers a careful, “No, I’m not mad.” Duke gets the feeling there’s something else Dwight’s not telling him, but at this point their personal drama is pretty low on Duke’s priority list.

“Listen,” Duke sighs, “I know you know about the troubles. And not in an, ‘oh, haha, local legend,’ kind of way. Like the real, actual, really actually happening troubles. And you’re the only person who can actually help me, right now.”

Finally, Dwight gives. He crosses his arms, leaning against the trunk of his car. “You get whammied?”

“Oh, thank god,” Duke huffs in relief. “Yes. Yeah. Yes. Big time. Nathan thinks we’re dating, and my boat is missing and today has just been—really weird.”

“What, you two break up?” Dwight asks; it comes out sounding compulsory and clumsy, like Dwight knows he’s supposed to ask, but doesn’t particularly care.

Duke’s rolls his eyes. “Haha, yeah, I get it, _Duke and Nathan are dating_ , a classic. Good one.”

“Got it—so, you’re not in love with him?” Dwight asks, casual and innocent on the surface, but with just a hint of a taunt underneath.

“Now, that is a—” Duke shakes a finger at him, ducking a laugh. “That is a loaded question, there, Sasquatch.”

“Okay,” Dwight counters. There’s a placating patience to his tone and Duke isn’t a fan. “So, you _didn’t_ break up?”

Duke sputters. “We didn’t—we weren’t _together._ You know what, never mind. Look. It’s not just that. My bar. It’s still the Second Chance.”

Dwight raises an eyebrow at him. “What else would it be?”

Duke reels from another spike of intellectual vertigo. Something is wrong— _everything_ is wrong, but at the same time everything seems so _normal_. Haven is Haven. Dwight is Dwight. But the pieces aren’t lining up. “Uh, The Grey Gull?” He prompts, desperately hoping for some recognition from Dwight, but coming up empty. “The thing I renamed it after Bill left?”

“Why would Bill leave?” Dwight asks, sounding genuinely confused. “I thought that place was you two’s whole… thing.”

For someone who claimed they weren’t friends, Dwight sure seems to know a lot about him. Duke isn’t sure if he should be flattered or creeped out.

It doesn’t add up, either. Duke didn’t get involved with the restaurant until Bill handed it off. Sure it’s ‘their’ thing in the most general sense of the term, but it was never ‘their’ thing at the same time. For all that Duke loved cooking—loved the pipedream of maybe doing something with that, someday—there wasn’t exactly any room in his life for getting into the restaurant business. Not back when Bill and Geoff got started.

It doesn’t make any sense.

Shaking his head, Duke asks, “How’m I supposed to be running a restaurant with a guy who rots food when he’s pissed?”

Bill’s trouble was half of how Duke wound up with the Gull in the first place. Bill couldn’t exactly keep ownership of the place if the first sign of stress had him killing their supply chains. Between that and Geoff, Duke couldn’t blame him for leaving—even if it did make Haven just a little bit lonelier.

But Dwight makes it his business to know things, and he doesn’t seem to know Bill’s gone—even though Bill’s been gone for almost a year.

Dwight crosses his arms, regarding Duke with a cautious expression. “How do you know about Bill’s trouble?” He asks. “Bill doesn’t even know about Bill’s trouble.”

“I—what?” Duke feels like he’s been dropped into the goddamn _Twilight Zone_ , which is impressive given all the weird shit he’s seen up until now. “Dwight, the whole fucking town knows about Bill’s trouble. He _Mummy Returns’_ d like half the local crops. What are you talking about?”

Dwight regards him for a long moment before calmly asking, “What do you think happens in _The Mummy Returns_?”

Duke is about to go absolutely nuclear.

“The mummy guy, like, ages really fast doesn’t he?” Duke blurts before his train of thought ticks back onto track and he waves away the digression. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Anyway. How is Bill running a restaurant?”

Dwight shakes his head. Normally, Duke likes his easy, level-headedness. Right now, the calm demeanor feels patronizing, at best.

“We’ve been keeping an eye on Bill. His trouble hasn’t gone off.”

“We?” Duke asks, reeling, “Who’s we?”

Predictably, Dwight dodges the question.

“So, what are you trying to tell me, Duke? That you got hit with a trouble and it made you? What? Travel through time? To before Bill leaves and before you—get a boat, I guess?” Dwight runs a hand through his hair, expression thoughtful. “Got a couple time-related troubles in town. Could be one of those.”

“No. No, this is not any _time_ I remember.” He’s getting sick and tired of talking in circles. It’s obvious, now, that Dwight is purposefully giving him the run around. At first, Duke thought he was still angry about the fallout around the Crocker journal, but the longer it goes on, the more it seems like Dwight’s distrust might be as genuine and unfamiliar as Audrey’s.

“Okay,” Dwight counters, measured as always. “So, it’s a memory trouble.”

“Something _changed_ ,” Duke insists. “I don’t know what, exactly. But it’s like—like all these little things that keep stacking up.”

Dwight reaches out and squeezes his shoulder in a motion that seems equal parts comforting and perhaps intended to steer Duke back in the direction of his car. He nudges him gently that way as he says, “Listen, Duke, I’ve been looking out for this town for a long time. If there were a trouble like that, I’d know. It’d be a mess. Look, go home. Get some sleep.”

What Duke needs is some way to convince Dwight that what’s happening is real and not just some delusion he’s under. He stands, floundering, for a moment before finally blurting a clumsy, “You’re a bullet magnet.”

“Sorry, was that—were you proving something?” Dwight levels him with an amused look, but Duke can see the irritation prickling underneath it. He’s reaching the end of Dwight’s good will. “‘Cause a lot of people know about my trouble. Nice try, though.”

He’s either going to wind up decked or he’s coming out the other side with an actual ally. It’s worth the risk. “Yeah?” Duke asks, pushing forward, “And how many of them know it was triggered in Afghanistan?”

Dwight goes still, brows furrowed. Duke imagines the expression looks closer to confused than outright hostile, but maybe that’s wishful thinking on his part.

Finally, Dwight answers, “Nobody who’d tell you.”

It’s not much, but it’s something. Duke urges, “I swear to you, Squatch. This is not the Haven I woke up in, this morning.”

Dwight goes quiet and stays that way for what feels like forever. Finally, he huffs out a sigh and levels Duke with a frustrated but yielding expression. “Fine. Something’s up, I’ll give you that. But can you at least try and keep a lid on this while we get it figured out? I don’t need you running around poking holes in shit when I’m barely keeping this place together, as it is.”

“Finally, somebody’s making some sense!” Duke practically cheers.

Dwight interrupts his preemptive celebrating with a sharp, “I mean it, Duke. Don’t tell anybody about this, yet. Not even Nathan. The last thing we need is a panic when we don’t even know what it is.”

Duke holds up his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright, I’ll play house. But you are helping me get to the bottom of this.”

Dwight scoffs. He crosses his arms, settling back on his heels to regard Duke with a thoughtful expression. “Don’t get too excited. I still think it’s some kind of memory thing. You and Nathan have been together since high school. That’s way before the troubles hit.”

Since high school. Duke feels dizzy. Him and Nathan, together since high school. Him and Bill, co-owning the restaurant that Bill started working towards right after graduation. No Cape Rouge anywhere to be found.

All the mismatched pieces finally click into place.

“I never left,” he murmurs in shocked understanding. But the realization raises more questions than it answers. “Why the hell wouldn’t I leave? I hated this town.”

Duke and Nathan dated in high school in the Haven Duke remembers, too. Hell, Duke was infatuated. He’d have roped down the moon for Nathan Wuornos.

And even that wasn’t enough to make him stay. Nothing could have kept him here, not back then. Not when he couldn’t take two steps without earning some disapproving glare. Not when he was the town fuck-up before he was old enough to drink (legally, anyway).

Dwight shrugs, unbothered, and Duke realizes he’s not exactly helping his case as far as convincing Dwight this isn’t some kind of memory loss issue.

“Well, it’d have broken your mother’s heart,” Dwight jokes, but it’s not the sharp, gallows-humor they both use when they joke about their fathers. It’s light and teasing, devoid of baggage.

Duke goes rigid. Some mix of panic and dread tangle together in his stomach. “My what?” He asks, turning to Dwight with a carefully blank expression.

“Angela?” Dwight asks, concern creeping into his voice. “Your mom?”

For a moment, Duke’s relief blocks out everything else. “That’s not my mom’s name.”

Dwight rolls his eyes, as if Duke is being purposefully difficult. “Adopted mom, whatever.”

Just when Duke thinks he’s starting to get a handle on whatever this is, Dwight has to go and hit him with the curveball of the century. “Hang on,” he sputters, “I was _adopted_?”

Dwight looks at him with this uncomfortable, pitying grimace that Duke can’t stand. “How hard you hit your head, buddy?”

Duke, to be frank, does not have _room_ for this particular surprise right now. He’s out of bandwidth. It should land harder, shock him into some kind of action, but it just adds to the white noise of confusion that’s been buzzing louder and louder all day.

“You know what, this is one too many revelations for one day,” Duke decides. Shaking his head with an exhausted sigh, he asks, “Can you just drop me off wherever I apparently live, now? I’ll just walk my happy ass back to my car, in the morning.”

Dwight nods and unlocks his doors, ducking into the driver’s seat. “Maybe you, uh, shouldn’t be driving anyway.”

Duke rolls his eyes as he settles in the passenger’s seat. “Your concern is touching, truly,” he drawls.

They’re quiet for the first few minutes of the drive. Duke’s barely aware of how he raps his knuckles rhythmically against the passenger window until Dwight casts him a sideways glance and grumbles, “Knock it off.”

Dropping his hands into his lap, Duke puffs out a long breath before he looks at Dwight over his shoulder and jokes, “Bet this is the weirdest conversation you’ve had this week, huh?”

He tries to hide it, but Duke spots the little smile that tugs at the corner of Dwight’s mouth. “Not even close.”

Duke laughs, a little of the tension managing to wind out of him. There’s something safe about Dwight, even if he did try to brain Duke with an antique trunk that one time. (Nobody’s perfect.)

When Dwight finally pulls into the driveway of an extremely familiar Haven home, Duke shoots him a disbelieving look.

“You’re kidding, right?” Duke asks. He glances back and forth between the front door and Dwight’s upsettingly serious expression. “This is Nathan’s house.”

Dwight nods. The patented patience to his voice has started to run thin. “Yeah, and this is where you live.”

Duke sags against the seat. This whole thing is so much bigger than he thought it was. It’s just one thing after another after another after another. “Yeah, and I’m getting the feeling I’m not in Kansas anymore,” he sighs.

Entirely deadpan, Dwight says, “You’re in Maine.”

It just feels like the final straw, honestly. Throwing his hands up, Duke barks, “Jesus Christ, is there no _Wizard of Oz_ here, too?”

“Duke,” Dwight says, and Duke turns in time to spot the shit-eating grin on his face. “I’m kidding.”

“Yeah, well you’re not very funny, Squatch,” Duke grumbles as he climbs out of the car.

It’s a little funny.

“Good luck,” Dwight says. Duke’s about to shut the door when Dwight cuts in with a stern, “Do _not_ tell Nathan what’s going on, yet.”

“Roger,” Duke agrees.

He hovers in the driveway for a few minutes. He promised Dwight he’d play house, but he doesn’t even know where to start. He was _adopted_. How much has changed? Who was the Duke Crocker that Nathan knew? What kind of trouble did they get into?

He was never good at lying to Nathan, in the first place. How’s he supposed to do it now, when he doesn’t even know what the truth is?

He can’t stand in the yard all night.

Steeling himself, Duke approaches the door and finds it unlocked. He ducks a smile. Small towns don’t change, at least. Still, he can’t rid himself of the feeling that he’s intruding; no part of him really believes this is his house.

Nathan’s waiting in the living room. He shoots to his feet as soon as Duke comes through the door, putting on an unconvincing façade of calm as he rounds the couch to meet Duke in the entryway. “Hey,” Nathan says, with the same kind of placating, over-softness you might offer a skittish dog. Duke’s pretty certain he means well, but that tone coming from Nathan Wuornos rings sarcastic in any context.

“You weren’t answering your phone,” Nathan says, and Duke pats his pockets, realizing with a jolt that he doesn’t have it on him, even though he’s sure he had it when he was drinking at the Gull—that is, back when it still _was_ the Gull.

“Uh, sorry,” Duke mumbles. He’s caught up in his own thoughts, trying to figure out if the phone is still sitting on the bar or if he somehow managed to drop it during the chaos of the day. “Must’ve left my phone in the car.”

All thoughts in his head disappear when Nathan crosses the distance between them and lays the back of his hand across Duke’s forehead. It’s this casual, understated show of intimacy that rabbits Duke’s heart up into his mouth.

“You feeling okay?” Nathan asks. Seemingly satisfied that Duke isn’t running a fever, Nathan lingers in Duke’s space when he runs a hand up his arm and murmurs, “Audrey said you stopped by the station. She said you seemed kinda… frantic?”

Fuck, of course she called him.

Duke promised Dwight he wouldn’t make waves, but the impulse to explain himself beats against the back of his teeth. He can barely keep a grip on it. He isn’t sick and he isn’t time traveling and he isn’t suffering from goddamn selective amnesia. But everyone he’s talked to today—his _friends_ —have all tried to _handle_ him: talk him down or brush him off or check him for fevers like he’s some helpless little kid.

But he can’t get angry. He gets angry, he gives away the game.

Still, it feels like cheating, somehow, to calm himself down by leaning into the press of Nathan’s hand against his arm. It feels unearned.

“Uh, yeah,” Duke mumbles; he can’t quite look Nathan in the eye. “I don’t know. I guess I just thought me and Audrey were, uh, better friends than we are.”

Nathan’s expression goes startled. “What? That’s not possible.”

Duke’s heart leaps in his chest. Finally, some _sense_. Duke searches Nathan’s expression, hoping for more of that sudden understanding to come rushing in. He opens his mouth to speak, but Nathan keeps going.

His voice is warm and teasing when he says, “You mean somebody out there’s immune to the Duke Crocker charm?”

Duke bites down on his own disappointment. “Shut up,” he mumbles. There’s no teeth to it, even when Duke feels a little like he’s drowning.

New Nathan reminds him an awful lot of old Nathan—the boy he fell in love with, the first time around. The one who white-knuckled it through school, but saved the brightest, truest smiles for him. The boy who stole a pack of his father’s cigarettes on a dare, who let Duke drive him out to a cliff overlooking the bay. The one who took one puff of a Marlboro Red and reeled back hacking and gagging, tossing the box at Duke with a strained laugh. _Why the fuck would anybody smoke that stuff?_

Duke hasn’t seen that Nathan in years. It makes the man in front of him seem out-of-focus and dreamlike. He ought to like it—Nathan being kind to him for once.

It unsettles him more than it comforts him. But maybe that says more about him than it does about Nathan. Or Not-Nathan. Or Troubled Nathan. Or whoever the hell he is.

Nathan squeezes his arm, pulling him from his thoughts. “You hungry?” He asks.

Exhaustion settles like a weight on his shoulders. “No, I think I’m just gonna… go to sleep.”

He almost startles when Nathan presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“I’ll be in soon, okay?” Nathan tells him, before heading toward the kitchen.

Duke’s grateful for the moment alone. He doesn’t have to pretend to know his way around. The first drawer he opens is full of Nathan’s clothes. His second guess is right. Idly, he wonders what he ‘usually’ wears to bed, as far as this iteration of Nathan is concerned. He doesn’t want to set off red flags, but he isn’t about to crawl into bed in the buff.

Finally, he settles on a thin tank top and a loose pair of boxers. In the bathroom, he tries to riddle out which color of virtually identical toothbrushes is supposed to be his before giving up and taking his chances.

Duke’s not used to sleeping this far from the water. He isn’t a fan of the silence. And the stillness. It’s strange. It leaves too much empty room for thinking. God knows he’s got enough to think about.

What kind of trouble was this? Did he change the past? Hop dimensions? Nothing he can come up with explains _Audrey_.

About fifteen minutes into Duke’s sleepless ruminating, the door at his back opens and closes with a soft click. Duke’s heartbeat suddenly kicks into overdrive. Curled on his side, back to the rest of the bed, he holds himself still as a statue as he listens to the sounds of Nathan getting undressed in the dark.

“You’re not asleep,” Nathan teases on a whisper.

Duke feels hit with a wave of fondness. The quiet familiarity makes him ache.

“Got me,” he confesses, forcing his shoulders to relax even when none of the rest of him will cooperate.

The mattress creaks and dips. Duke stares at the dark shape of the far wall.

This morning, Nathan was one insinuation shy of outright calling Duke a murderer. Now, he’s crawling into bed beside him, and Duke feels struck with a kind of palpable anxiety that sharing a bed with someone hasn’t inspired in him in years.

Duke isn’t sure which he’s more scared of: being touched or not being touched.

Duke still doesn’t know what this trouble _is_.

He doesn’t _think_ Nathan’s being mind-controlled; there’s too much else going on to make it as simple as that. But when things go back to normal, will he remember this? The two of them, curled together in Nathan’s bed?

And if it isn’t Nathan at all? What does that make Duke?

Pathetic, probably.

He’s always been pathetic when it comes to Nathan Wuornos.

“You’re on my side,” Nathan murmurs, warm against the back of his neck.

“Deal with it,” Duke mumbles back, trying to maintain the front of casual normality. It’s not a big deal. It’s their bed. Their house, apparently.

Duke’s barely able to suppress a shiver when Nathan fits up against him. Duke wants him and he hates how much. But Nathan doesn’t get handsy with him. He drapes an arm over Duke’s waist and plants a chaste kiss on the crest of his shoulder before settling into the pillow and going still.

“G’night,” Nathan murmurs, his voice muffled against the pillow.

Duke breathes a sigh of relief.

The moral gray area of being the little spoon, he thinks, is trivial at best.

It’s just _cuddling_.

But that doesn’t exactly change how long Duke’s wanted something like this. It doesn’t change the way he shivers when Nathan’s knuckles brush against his stomach, or how he’s hyperaware of every point of contact. It doesn’t change the hours it takes for him to get to sleep, because some desperate, pitiful part of his brain is too busy cataloging how it feels to be wrapped in the circle of Nathan’s arms and actually feel safe there. Wanted.

Sometime after Nathan’s started to snore, he nestles forward and sleepily, thoughtlessly, nuzzles the back of Duke’s neck and Duke’s chest goes so tight, he can hardly remember how to breathe.

It’s not fair, being this close: getting exactly what he wants but in a way he doesn’t trust or understand.

(When he wakes up with Nathan’s arm still wrapped around him, he almost, almost forgets it isn’t real. Nathan kisses him good morning and the guilt ties him like a bow.

But not enough to stop him kissing back.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments keep me going! I'd love to hear what you think. I have a lot planned for this weird little AU, and I hope you'll stick around to see how it plays out. :)


	2. the paths you didn't take

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A teller of tall tales turns into a story.

Duke Crocker showing up unannounced in Nathan’s office isn’t exactly unprecedented.

In retrospect, maybe it was too much for Nathan to hope that their fight from this morning would have earned him a few hours’ peace. Considering Duke’s talent for overturning rocks and finding snakes underneath, Nathan really should have expected he’d be back for round two.

He’s sure the spring in Duke’s step means trouble. Duke only taps into that particular well of energy when he’s chasing a bad idea or breaking the rules. (And, in Duke’s case, the overlap on those Venn diagrams is significant.)

He knocks twice on the door frame, wearing a grin that barely fits on his face. Nathan does not have the mental or emotional capacity for whatever the this is, right now. He only glances up from his desk long enough to pin Duke with a warning glare before dropping his eyes back to his work.

“Duke,” he offers, flat and calm. Despite his suspicions, Nathan would rather avoid starting another fight if he can help it. He’s still licking his wounds from the last one.

After Duke’s comment about being like Garland, Nathan could barely stand to look at the badge on his desk. He dumped it into the drawer and tried not to think about it, about legacies, about the house he grew up in.

He hasn’t been getting a lot of work done, these last few hours—been staring at the same paperwork for ages, unable to make his brain connect even the most basic of dots.

It’s fine.

Duke strolls in without an ounce of tension in his body. Nathan can’t stand how easy it is, for him: the way things seem to just roll right off, the way he bounces back like he doesn’t have a care in the fucking world. It makes it easy to hate him, sometimes. (Once upon a time, _hate_ wasn’t the word he would have used. But that was a long time ago, now.)

Sidling up to Nathan’s desk, Duke hums a pleasant, “Hey, babe.”

“Don’t call me babe,” Nathan retorts, keeping his eyes glued to his half-finished paperwork.

“Ouch,” Duke laughs. A real laugh. “Somebody’s prickly. Break room run out of dark roast?”

So, this is what they’re doing, huh?

Sighing, Nathan puts down his pen and finally gives Duke the undivided attention he’s so obviously looking for. “Duke,” he says—firm and measured and professional—“Why are you here?”

Before Duke actually has a chance to answer, Nathan cuts back in with a serious, “If you’re just here about the case again, then I don’t wanna hear it. I really don’t have time.”

“Hey,” Duke argues, but there’s an undeniable, unbothered warmth behind the performative frustration. “Now, is that any way to talk to the guy who brought you lunch?” The grin sneaks back onto his face and he drops a Grey Gull takeout bag onto the center of Nathan’s desk.

Of the many ways this conversation might have gone, Nathan has no predetermined reaction to _this_.

“Oh,” he mumbles, staring confusedly down at the bag in front him. It smells incredible—garlic and honey, paprika, something bright and citrus. “Uh, thanks?”

If this is supposed to be Duke’s idea of an olive branch—well, it’s not _not_ working.

Duke offers a breezy—if not slightly smug, “Yeah, you’re welcome.” Waving a hand, he continues, “Anyway, I can see you’re busy. I’ll leave you to it.” Halfway out the door, he stops to lean back into the room and add, “But seriously, though—tell me what you think of the salmon. It’s a new recipe and I’m not putting it on the menu if you hate it.”

“Fine, okay,” Nathan huffs. It is, admittedly, difficult to hold onto his ire when the bag in front of him smells the way it does—even if he’s _positive_ that Duke’s just buttering him up to ask for something.

Whatever it is, Nathan gets free lunch out of it, so he’s pretty sure that means he comes out on top.

Duke finally ducks out of the room, but he shouts an overly loud, “love you,” over his shoulder on his way out of the station. Nathan spots a couple officers—Stan and Rafferty included—peeking curiously through his window and wishes the floor would open like some kind of trapdoor and swallow him whole.

Embarrassment and irritation get so tangled together, he can’t tell where one starts and the other stops.

Pointedly not returning the other officer’s looks, Nathan spends the next several minutes dutifully trying to ignore the to-go bag in favor of actually getting some actual work done. It goes about as well as it’s gone all day. He’s on the verge of surrendering to take an early lunch when Audrey wanders in and he forgets about the food entirely.

She looks distracted. He pretends to be busy while she settles at her desk, but he catches her restlessness out of his peripheral: the way she thrums her nails against the desk and keeps eyeing the door.

Things have been strange between them for days. Audrey isn’t cold, but she’s detached in a way that feels purposeful. Like she’s trying to put space between them. They never actually had the date they were planning, and now it’s starting to seem like they aren’t going to. Dread sits like a marble in his stomach—small and heavy and strange.

“Everything okay?” He finally asks, overly and almost comically casual.

If she notices his awkwardness, she does him the favor of not commenting on it. “Did Duke seem… weird to you?”

“You mean weirder than usual?” He asks, unable to resist the dig.

Audrey tries her best to meet his joke with an exasperated scoff, ducking her smile so he can’t see it. A burst of pride ripples through him.

“You know what I mean,” she scoffs, waving a hand. “He was kind of—? I don’t know. Distant.”

“Distant?” Nathan echoes in surprise. He tries to reconcile _distant_ with the overly cheerful and friendly version of Duke that left his office a few minutes ago.

Tapping her pen against the desk, Audrey muses, “Yeah, just kinda impersonal. He called me _officer_.”

Nathan chuckles. “What, you piss him off?”

“No more than usual,” Audrey jokes. It earns her a bitten down smile that Nathan aims at his desk. Trying to keep himself focused on the subject at hand, he scoots the to-go bag into view.

“He brought me lunch.”

“So _that’s_ what smells so good,” Audrey hums, only to immediately pivot into an amused, “Wait—Duke brought you lunch? What is this, opposite day?”

Nathan scoffs. “And when does he bring _you_ lunch?”

If he didn’t know better, he’d swear she goes a little pink.

“It’s been known to happen,” she argues, avoidantly flipping through her paperwork with a faux nonchalance. Not looking up, she adds an excessively casual, “And it’s breakfast, usually. You know, when he opens the Gull for the day.”

Nathan refuses to call his sudden flare of discomfort jealousy. He is not jealous of Duke goddamn Crocker.

And since he’s not jealous, he counters with an almost petulant, “Guess it’s my turn, then.”

“What,” Audrey lights up with a teasing grin, “you think he’s sweet on you, too?”

Nathan covers for the strange flutter in his chest with a caustic, “Uh, yeah, no thanks. You can have him.”

“Shut up, you like him,” Audrey counters, playful and purposefully childish.

Nathan doesn’t rise to the joke. He keeps his voice level and serious when he insists, “I really, really don’t.”

Audrey just shakes her head with a low chuckle, clicking her pen against the desk. “Oh yeah? ‘Cause you look at him the exact same way you—” Abruptly, she stops: all the momentum yanked out from under her.

“Same way I what?” Nathan asks, confused. It feels like the joke’s gotten away from him, somehow, but he isn’t sure where he lost it.

“Never mind,” Audrey tells him, but she’s laughing again: this soft, airy little chuckle.

He can’t take his eyes off her.

* * *

Audrey spends most of the workday finding reasons to avoid talking to Nathan about anything that isn’t a case. She hopes her sudden, intense attention to detail comes off as focused rather than avoidant, but the more she dodges, the less she thinks she’s pulling it off.

The atmosphere in the office becomes strange and awkward. Nathan keeps trying to start conversations that Audrey won’t let him finish. She practically bolts for the door when their shift comes to an end.

She needs to tell him about the Hunter. She knows that.

But telling him makes it real. She isn’t ready for it to be real, yet.

She wonders if the Hunter has anything to do with why Duke was so strange with her, this afternoon. Maybe he’s severing ties early, cutting his losses, stepping back now before it’s too painful. It sounds like the kind of thing Nathan would accuse Duke of doing.

But it doesn’t seem like something Duke would actually do.

Maybe she’s taking this way too personally.

Audrey finds Duke behind the bar at the Gull. It quiets something in her chest, seeing him in his element like this. Lit in the dim yellow of the bar, he looks golden and relaxed: soft around the edges. Even if he weren’t the person she was here to see, she’d still be drawn to him like a magnet.

She settles on a stool at the counter and waits for him to finish up with a customer.

“Well, well, well,” Duke singsongs as he turns his attention on her. “If it isn’t my second favorite badge in Haven. What can I do you for?”

“Funny,” Audrey comments with a wry smile. She drums her hands against the counter, leaning closer. “Actually, I was hoping to get your opinion on something, if you’ve got a minute.”

Duke slings his rag over his shoulder, expression pleasant and blank when he drawls, “For you? The world.”

There’s something almost customer-service about the way he says it.

Choosing to barrel forward, Audrey explains, “It’s this whole bolt gun killer thing. I mean, as far as we can tell, these women have nothing in common, minus the missing parts. But a bolt gun is a pretty intimate murder weapon, you know? So, how is this guy—”

Duke cuts in on her momentum, lifting both hands in the air in a sign of surrender. “Woah, woah, woah, hold on,” he interrupts. Despite the nature of the topic, he wears an easy, overly patient expression. It’s one she’s seen on him a dozen times before, but something about it doesn’t sit right. She can’t put her finger on it.

“We got a no cop-talk rule in my bar, Officer Parker.” He grins at her, and _that_ part is familiar. But it’s not the same as the intimate, warm expression that leaves her just a little short of breath. It’s bright and empty. All panache, no substance.

She doesn’t like it.

Selecting bottles from the shelf, Duke continues, “Sorry, but you know how it is. I get enough of that at home. So, this? This space is sacred.”

Audrey feels like she’s missing something. Chuckling a little cautiously, she asks, “Who’s talking shop at home?”

Duke laughs. It’s an honest, unguarded sound.

(And she does like that—likes it so much that it aches, just a little.)

“Who do you think?” He asks.

The question surprises her, but not nearly as much as it probably should have. So, Nathan and Duke have started hanging out, again. It’s about time, honestly. Their on-again-off-again, friends-to-assholes schtick was getting a little old.

Still, it hurts just a little that neither one of them told her.

“Look,” Audrey reassesses, approaching from a different angle, “I know Nathan’s been a hard-ass about letting you help, but I wanna know what you think.”

Duke shakes his head, gathering empty glasses. “Serial killers? Missing body parts? It all seems a little bit above my paygrade.”

Audrey sighs. This was bound to happen. Nathan pushes Duke away and she lets him—not because she wants Duke to go, but because the thing between the two of them is ancient and complicated and it never felt right to meddle in it.

But if there’s anything she’s learned about Duke Crocker it’s that he gives and gives and gives until he doesn’t. There’s a tipping point, somewhere. It isn’t always one thing and it isn’t always the same. But eventually, he runs out of patience.

It stings, though: being part of whatever tipped him over.

“Look,” Duke placates, watching her with a kind expression. “I hate to disappoint you on your murder investigation. But I _can_ whip you up a cocktail that’ll knock your socks off. What’ll it be? Margarita? Daquiri? If it’s blood you’re after, I make a mean Bloody Mary.”

Duke hasn’t asked for her drink order since her first week in Haven; it never changes. But he’s trying to make it up to her, so maybe he means to make something special.

Audrey briefly entertains the idea of mixing it up, but given how her day has been going, ultimately settles on taking comfort in routine. “Martini. Dry. And don’t forget the extra olives.”

“Ah,” Duke nods sagely. “A classic. I appreciate a woman who knows what she wants.”

Audrey never really considered the way Duke interacted with her—outside of those first couple weeks where he tried asking her out—to be particularly flirty. Duke’s just _like that_ ; it’s how he talks to everybody. She notices now, though, the lack of heat behind his words, the absence of double meaning. It’s striking.

Something hot and embarrassed tightens her throat and she stares down at the counter while he mixes her drink. First Nathan, now Duke. What else is she going to mess up in the minimal time she has left?

She knows Duke, though. Duke can be petty and distant, but it never lasts. Whatever’s gone sour between them, they’ll be able to fix.

She isn’t so sure about what will happen after she tells Nathan the truth about why she’s been dodging him. Or when he figures out that Duke already knew. She knows that the longer she keeps the secret, the worse the inevitable fallout, but that just makes it harder to find the words for it.

Audrey drinks her martini in relative quiet while Duke splits his attention between the other patrons. Occasionally he checks back in with that same vacant, perfunctorily agreeable demeanor. More than once, Audrey convinces and unconvinces herself that she’s reading too far into things and that it’s just a busy night at the Gull. She isn’t sure which version of the truth she actually believes by the time she gets to the bottom of her glass.

Gathering her coat, Audrey gets to her feet with every intention of making a quiet exit.

“Leaving already?” Duke asks, his voice warm. “You pounded that pretty fast. You good to drive?”

Audrey laughs. A little bit of the tension unspools from her chest and things feel halfway normal again. “Yeah,” she snorts, “all the way up the stairs.” She shakes her head with a deflating chuckle and casts a weak attempt at a smile back at him. “Thanks, Duke. I’m—uh. I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Duke hums, kind and bright and gentle as ever. “You got nothin’ to be sorry about.”

* * *

Of the various ways Nathan thought he might spend his Wednesday evening, locked in his own bathroom was not on the list.

He stands with his back pressed to the door like he expects someone to try and kick it down. He can’t feel his heartbeat in the classical sense, but he can feel the confused rush of adrenaline spiking through him—the unbalanced, off-kilter sense of _wrong_. He fumbles his phone, distracted by the bright sound that peals from the other side of the line.

He’s trying to keep himself together and Audrey is _laughing_ at him.

“Parker, I’m serious!” Nathan hisses.

He can hear the smile on her face. “It’s just Duke, Nathan.”

“He’s at my _house!_ ”

“Oh, the horror,” she teases. “A visit? From Duke Crocker? Unheard of. Impossible.”

Despite what Audrey might think, Nathan is aware of the absurdity of the situation. Of course he’s overreacting; that isn’t the point. The point is that Duke’s been strange all day and showing up on his doorstep was just the final straw in a long list of weirdness.

“He thinks he lives here,” Nathan pushes, struggling to keep his voice low. The words tumble out in a hurried, quiet rush. “With me. He thinks we live together. Like together, together. Like I only have one bed and he thinks that’s _fine_ , together.”

Audrey’s attempts to hide her laugh don’t quite work and he hears a muffled snort crackle across the connection.

“ _Parker,_ ” he whispers in frustrated desperation. In retrospect, he has no idea why he thought Audrey would have some kind of sage, third-party advice on how to handle this situation. Calling her just seemed like the only logical choice.

“What?” She chimes. She’s entirely too entertained by the whole thing, but to her credit, she does try to refocus. “Okay, okay,” she says, “So, it’s definitely a trouble. But, like, I don’t know, as far as troubles go it seems pretty… tame. He seemed fine, at the Gull.”

He stands to attention. “When were you at the Gull?”

“Uh, I live there?”

Nathan used to associate embarrassment with a physical feeling—a heat or a tension. Now, it crops up as a kind of phantom limb: an extension of a part of himself that no longer exists. He can’t _feel_ his face, but if he had to place embarrassment on his body, he’d put it there.

“Right,” he mumbles, grateful that she isn’t here to see him squirm. An awful helplessness elbows in alongside everything else when he urges, “What am I supposed to do?”

“I have no idea,” Audrey admits. After a pause, she offers, “Okay, come over and we’ll regroup. I’m sure this isn’t the first time something like this has happened in Haven. We just need to… you know. Put the pieces together.”

“Yeah,” Nathan agrees. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

He can hear the smug grin on her face when she singsongs, “Tell Duke hi for me.”

“Goodbye, Parker.”

Nathan finds Duke in the bedroom— _his_ bedroom—wearing nothing but boxers and one of Nathan’s cotton t-shirts. He nearly stumbles at the sight, an emotion he can’t name climbing up the rungs of his ribs like a ladder.

Nathan only stares for a second before stammering out an unconvincing, “Hey, uh—sorry, but something got called in at the station, so I gotta—um. I can’t stay.” Privately, Nathan wonders how the hell he’s ever managed to keep the lid on the troubles if this is what he sounds like when he lies.

The fact that Duke doesn’t even try to call him out for it is honestly just more proof that something’s wrong.

“Yeah, it’s always something, isn’t it?” Duke sighs. He gets up and crosses the space between them. Draping his arms around Nathan’s neck, Duke pins him with a warm expression that doesn’t look nearly as unfamiliar as Nathan thinks it ought to.

“Alright,” Duke murmurs. He cards a hand through Nathan’s hair that Nathan hears rather than feels. “Go be a hero.” He tips forward, into what Nathan’s sure is meant to be a simple, casual goodnight kiss.

As if the two of them have ever known the first thing about simple or casual.

Nathan turns at the last second, catching the kiss on his cheek instead. He goes tongue-tied, struck by the phantom sensation of butterflies in his stomach: this flustered, unfocused echo of a feeling that’s all in his head.

If Duke notices his odd, half-panicked reaction, he doesn’t comment on it. He untangles himself with an affectionate ruffle of Nathan’s hair and drops backwards onto the mattress with a bounce: starfished out, decadently.

Grinning up at him, Duke teases, “But if I’ve got all the covers when you get back, you’re just gonna have to deal with it.”

In spite of himself, Nathan almost laughs at that one. He ducks his head to hide his smile while he tries to wrestle with the unsettled fluster inside of his chest. “Yeah, that’s fair. I’ll—uh. See you later.”

“Mm-hm,” Duke singsongs with a breezy wave of his hand. “Turn off the light on your way out.”

Nathan can’t feel his heartbeat, but he could swear he can hear it.

* * *

The irony of Nathan lying to his so-called boyfriend only to go knocking on a woman’s door in the middle of the night isn’t lost on Audrey.

It’s kind of hilarious, honestly.

She knows this is serious. She knows that something was _off_ with Duke when she spoke to him. The way he responded to case talk, the distance he put between them. She doesn’t like it. But it doesn’t seem all that dangerous, either. (And maybe there’s a little bit of selfish relief there, too—that whatever is wrong between them is the fault of a trouble and not _her_. The troubles, at least, she knows how to deal with.)

Based on the harrowed expression on Nathan’s face when he shows up at her door, she’d guess that he doesn’t find the whole thing nearly as funny as she does. He meets her grin with a scowl and shuffles past her.

“Did he kiss you goodnight?” Audrey teases, just because it’s fun to watch stoic Nathan Wuornos light up like a hazard sign of embarrassment.

Without lifting his gaze from the floor, Nathan mutters, “He tried.”

She _could_ keep needling him about it. Neither one of them has ever admitted to it, but Audrey gets the distinct feeling that tonight’s almost-kiss wouldn’t have been Nathan and Duke’s first. If the situation were less important, she’d revel in the opportunity to dig a little deeper into the past the both of them seem to have under lock and key.

Nathan doesn’t say much, in general. Meanwhile, Duke never stops talking, and yet never _says_ anything. It makes them an infuriating pair to have thrown her lot in with.

She likes that about them as much as she hates it.

For the sake of Nathan’s obviously fraying emotional state, Audrey lets go of the joke and focuses on the facts.

“Okay,” she says, leaning against the back of the couch when she feels too restless to actually sit. “So, Duke got hit with a trouble.”

“Definitely,” Nathan cuts in, practically before she’s finished her sentence. He can’t seem to stand still—pacing back and forth across the line of windows.

“I mean, it’s a love trouble, right?” Audrey offers. “Like, he’s in love with you—” _And not me_ , she almost says: catches the words in the moment right before they bumble out of her mouth.

The three of them—romantic, platonic, however you look at it—it’s a house of cards, right now. With only two months left on the clock, she won’t be the one who knocks the whole thing over.

(And that’s its own problem, isn’t it? Two months. A secret so big, she can barely stand up straight under the weight of it.)

Nathan avoids eye contact when she uses the word _love_ —and really, she doesn’t know what else she expected. “I don’t know,” he murmurs. “He didn’t remember the Rouge.”

“He what?” Audrey goes still. A love trouble is one thing: harmless, straightforward, just something awkward to navigate around until they find the troubled person and set everything right.

But this doesn’t sound like that, at all.

“What do you mean he didn’t remember the Rouge?” Audrey scoffs in disbelief.

Nathan shakes his head, palms up, looking just as lost as she feels. “Just that. He knocked on the door, and I told him to go back to his boat. And he had no idea what I was talking about.”

A detail sticks in Audrey’s mind. “Hang on,” she backpedals, frowning up at Nathan. “You said knocked. He knocked. How’d he explain not having a key if he lived there?”

Nathan sighs and finally pauses his pacing long enough to lean up against the kitchen counter. Shaking his head, he says, “He didn’t have any keys. He said he lost them.”

Nathan’s trying to put a lid on his agitation, but he’s transparent. He can’t hold still—and that’s usually Duke’s schtick.

“And when you told him he never had a key?” Audrey prompts.

Nathan puffs out a frustrated noise. “He thought it was a joke.”

Duke and Nathan tease each other all the time; these days, it’s usually a little on the mean-spirited side, but it’s never been hard for Audrey to imagine a version of the two of them that didn’t grate the way they do, now. It’s easy to picture Duke laughing it off, brushing past Nathan and through the door without a care in the world. It’s not even all that hard to imagine Nathan letting him—if only out of shock.

“And what’d he say when you told him you two weren’t together?” She prompts.

After all his anxious fidgeting, Nathan goes abruptly, stonily still. “I, uh—didn’t. Tell him… that,” Nathan mumbles down to the ground.

“ _Nathan_ ,” Audrey gasps, exasperation bubbling up around the edges.

He rushes to jump to his own defense. “What?!” He blurts, “I don’t know! It—it didn’t come up?”

“It _didn’t come up_?” She pushes, practically talking over him.

“It was _weird_ , okay?” He protests, throwing his hands up in surrender. “I panicked!”

It probably doesn’t matter, in the end. It’s a trouble, and it’s not like just telling Duke he had his wires crossed would be enough to actually snap him out of it. Still, something about the whole thing feels wrong. Like they’re taking advantage, even though neither one of them has actually done anything.

And maybe—maybe she’s jealous, down somewhere deep. Somewhere she doesn’t want to look at, directly.

The truth is, she never minded the way Duke looked at Nathan until the moment Duke stopped looking at _her_ like that, too. And this really, really isn’t the time to be wrestling with that realization. (There _isn’t_ any time to wrestle with that realization, at all. Not with the Hunter so close.)

Sighing, Audrey drops heavily onto the couch—Duke’s couch, technically. He furnished the place: cleaned it out, set it up, made sure it was cozy, even if it wasn’t exactly to her taste, when she first moved in. That same man was barely interested in speaking to her, today. She doesn’t want it to hurt. It isn’t personal.

It still does.

“Do you think he’s dangerous?” She asks into the sudden still and quiet of the room.

Nathan seems startled, like the idea hadn’t even crossed his mind (which is hilarious coming from the guy who locked himself in his bathroom over a childhood friend coming to visit).

“Dangerous how?” Nathan asks.

“I don’t know,” Audrey says, and she doesn’t. She waves a hand, trying to will her thoughts into something coherent. “You know, like—like they say not to wakeup a sleepwalker, right? So, should we be _trying_ to snap him out of it, or is that only gonna make things worse?”

Jealous or not—and goddamn it, she wishes _not_ —maybe Nathan did the right thing by not making waves.

“He didn’t seem aggressive,” Nathan offers. He taps his fingers against the counter; the rhythmic thump sound must come as close to tactile as he ever gets, these days.

Well. Except when he’s with her. But everything about that has gotten so complicated, now. Just another mess she doesn’t have enough time to do anything about.

Again, the secret: thumping in her chest like a second heart. Out of sync.

Nathan doesn’t seem to notice the way she’s gone distant and half-focused. He continues, “He didn’t even seem _confused_. He’s just operating on a totally different wavelength.”

That brings her back to herself a little bit. She saw that exact thing in motion at the Gull: his impersonal, unbothered attitude. His painted-on smile.

Granted, a certain amount of that could probably be chalked up to the Crocker charm.

In the time she’s known him, Duke’s never backed down from a fight, but he’s never met a fight he didn’t at least try to talk himself out of first.

It wouldn’t be so suspicious if it were anyone else, but he doesn’t give those sales-pitch speeches to Nathan and Audrey. Not to them.

“You ever seen him lie?” Nathan asks suddenly. Audrey must make some kind of face at him, because he’s quick to correct himself to a placating, “Not like—nothing important. Just, I don’t know, sweettalking some vendor at the farmers market.”

“Yeah,” Audrey murmurs, warm with a smile she barely notices as she gets caught up in the memory of Duke trying to get a better price on the Gull’s bulk produce order, a few weeks ago. “Yeah, he tangles himself in some big, complicated story and then just—” She waves a hand. “Breezes over gaps like they don’t bother him.”

Nathan nods. “Yeah. This trouble, it’s like that. Except he’s the one lying—”

“And the one being lied to,” Audrey finishes. It’s comforting, in way, to know that they’re both on the same page—even if they don’t really know what the hell it actually means.

Audrey glances at the dark, overcast night hanging above the water. “Think it’s too late to call in backup?”

“I’m pretty sure Dwight never sleeps, honestly,” Nathan says on a soft laugh.

Sure enough, when Nathan calls the phone only rings twice before a familiar voice crackles across the line. Audrey can’t exactly make out the words from across the room, but he doesn’t sound like someone rousted from sleep. She wonders if he was off cleaning up some other mess halfway across town.

“Think you could meet us at the station in twenty minutes?” Nathan asks.

A pause. Nathan rocks on his heels. “Yeah, it’s a trouble alright.” Another pause. “No, just me and Audrey. Okay. Yeah. See ya.” He wears a sour expression as he fits the phone back into his pocket. “Why do they always assume Duke is coming? He’s not a cop.”

Audrey shoots him a look that probably used to be a patient one, months ago, but has frayed down into something more exasperated overtime. “Dwight isn’t, either,” she reminds him.

“Yeah, but he’s—” Nathan starts, only to rethink whatever he was going to say halfway through and stutter himself into a petulant, “Duke’s obnoxious.”

“He is,” Audrey agrees, reveling just a little in Nathan’s exasperation. “That’s what makes him fun.”

* * *

On their way to the station, Audrey tells Nathan about the way Duked acted at the Gull earlier—how he treated her like a customer and didn’t want to hear about the case. If there weren’t already more than enough red flags, Duke not wanting to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong would definitely be the tipping point.

No two troubles are ever the same, so it’s not as though any of them could have braced for something like this. But the strangest thing about Duke is how normal he is, underneath the rest of it. He doesn’t act confused or brainwashed or lost.

Nathan can’t stop thinking about the way Duke looked at him, back at the house. The warmth behind it. He can’t shake the feeling that that expression seems a hell of a lot more familiar than it ought to.

Never mind what they were or weren’t. They were kids. Duke hasn’t looked at him like that in years.

Right?

Nathan buries that line of thought before it can get away from him. This is a trouble. They’ll snap Duke out of it and then things can go back to normal.

They find Dwight already at the station, leaned up against Nathan’s desk. There are only a couple other officers milling around the bullpen, this time of night.

“Sorry to drag you out in the middle of the night,” Audrey offers, but Dwight just shrugs it off.

“The work needs doing whenever it needs doing,” he says with a wave. “What’s the damage, Chief?”

(Nathan isn’t sure he’s ever going to completely get used to being called that; some part of him keeps trying to look over his shoulder for Garland.)

“It’s Duke,” Nathan says. He lingers just inside the doorway, unable to quiet the restless impulse to move. Audrey, on the other hand, takes a seat on the couch.

Dwight crosses his arms. A serious expression furrows his brow. “He get hurt?”

“We don’t think so,” Audrey says, and Nathan notices a frustrated and helpless edge to the words. He wonders if—despite her calm outward demeanor—Audrey buzzes with the same undercurrent of anxiety that he does. 

Nathan cuts in. “Have you ever heard about a trouble that makes people act—weird?”

Dwight stares placidly back at him, one eyebrow raised. “People acting weird? In Haven?” His expression stays so doggedly deadpan, Nathan almost can’t tell for sure if it’s a joke.

Audrey takes over before Nathan can get his hackles up. “Maybe a memory trouble? Or—I don’t know. Some kind of perception swap? Duke’s fine, but he thinks…” She casts a glance at Nathan, like it’s some kind of secret and she isn’t sure it’s hers to tell.

Nathan bristles just a little. It’s not a _scandal_ , it’s a trouble. “He thinks we’re dating,” Nathan clarifies.

Dwight casts him a long, thoughtful look and Nathan doesn’t like the implication. “And this is… new?” Dwight asks carefully.

Flooded with a fresh rush of irritation, Nathan snaps, “He thinks we _live together_. Yes, it’s new.”

Dwight huffs out a little breath—the sound so soft, someone who didn’t know him might not even recognize it for a laugh. He holds up his hands in surrender. “Alright, easy.” Dwight considers the question. After a moment, he asks, “He remember who he talked to, today? Anybody he bumped into? Pissed off?”

Nathan shakes his head. “No idea. He’s gone total _Stepford Wives_.”

“He’s not _that_ weird,” Audrey corrects. “He’s still Duke.”

“He’s _weird_ , Dwight,” Nathan insists.

“You would know,” Dwight comments idly and Nathan finds himself spiked with another burst of annoyance. Audrey casts him a sideways glance. She doesn’t say anything, but he can read the humor in her expression. Taking a breath, he snuffs out the frustration before she has a chance to start teasing him about it in front of Dwight.

Opting to focus on the task at hand, Nathan offers, “He didn’t remember the Rouge. Acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about.”

Dwight hums a curious _huh_ sound. He scratches his beard as he thinks. It makes a nice noise; Nathan can’t help but notice—the way he’s always noticing things that don’t seem to matter to anyone else.

“Got plenty of memory troubles around town. Most of ‘em are pretty harmless,” Dwight tells them. He clicks his teeth, “And none of them usually come along with any, uh, romantic side effects, far as I’m aware. Same thing goes the other way around—handful of love troubles, but nothing I know of that could mess with his head like that.”

Audrey considers his answer, her expression gone pinched and focused. “How do you know all of this?” She asks Dwight. “I mean—I get it, you’re the cleaner, but—some of those troubles haven’t even gone off, right? I mean, I haven’t heard anything about them.”

“Plenty goes on in Haven that you two don’t hear about,” Dwight says, softening the comment with a wry, “Sorry, Chief.”

Nathan would like to think he manages to keep his tone impressively calm and diplomatic, given the situation. “Care to share with the class?” He asks, only the slightest thread of irritation crackling underneath.

Dwight sighs. He seems to contemplate his words carefully. “I used to work for a group called the Guard. They’re not as organized as they sound. Just—troubled people looking out for their own. Keeping an eye on things. Keeping troubles under wraps. Taking care of the people who need it. Troubles run in families and the Guard’s been around long enough, it knows what to look for.”

Nathan can’t believe what he’s hearing. More than that, he can’t believe he’s lived in Haven his whole life without knowing about this. He really thought nothing happened in this town without getting run through the gossip pipeline, but in thirty-five years, he’s never heard so much as a whisper about a _Guard_.

“And you couldn’t have told us about this sooner?” Nathan snaps, a little sharper than he honestly means to be. That knot of anxiety in his chest has been working its way up his throat all night—higher and higher until it feels like he might choke on it.

“Not every trouble needs to get called in,” Dwight counters, voice short. “And I left the Guard a long time ago. Not on good terms, either.”

“Great,” Nathan barks, voice flat. “So, where does that leave us?”

Dwight’s feathers seem only a little ruffled. His composure and patience remain in place. Nathan wonders if he picked up that little trick in the Guard or the Army or if he’s just been this way from the beginning.

Sighing, Dwight offers, “I got a few contacts who are still friendly. Might be able to call in a few favors, get better intel.”

Audrey nods. “Sounds like a plan,” she says. “Keep us posted?”

“Will do,” Dwight assures them. “Anything else?”

Audrey huffs a quiet little laugh. “One crisis at a time, I think. Thanks for coming.”

Dwight smiles. Despite the brief tension in the room, he wears the same warm, patient expression that Nathan’s come to associate with him. “Any time.” Heading for the door, he claps Nathan on the arm as he passes and offers an amused, “Good luck.”

Audrey turns away and Nathan’s sure she’s hiding a grin of her own. Begrudgingly, Nathan’s willing to admit that he _might_ find this a lot funnier if it wasn’t happening to him. As it stands, he rolls his eyes and drones a less than sincere, “Thanks.”

Dwight leaves, and Audrey gathers her keys. “You coming?” Audrey asks, casting a surprise look back at him when he doesn’t move to follow her. “I can drop you off at your car.”

“No, I—uh, I think I’m gonna crash here, for the night.” Nathan sinks down onto the small couch, grateful that he won’t be able to feel how stiff he’ll be in the morning.

“You can’t sleep here forever, you know.” Audrey casts him a sympathetic glance, but there’s undeniable humor hiding just behind the concerned expression.

“Won’t be forever,” Nathan counters. “We’ll get this figured out and taken care of in no time.”

Audrey sinks just a little, her expression warm and concerned. “I’m worried about him, too,” she offers gently. Sitting down beside him, she bumps their shoulders together. He can’t feel her through the layers of their jackets; he tries to tell himself that it doesn’t matter, that he doesn’t miss it, that this is fine, too.

“I’m not worried,” Nathan argues—even when he feels transparent. He doesn’t know how to lie to her, even when he’s doing just fine lying about it to himself. Staring down at the floor between his feet, he mumbles, “He just—weirds me out.”

“I know what you mean,” Audrey sighs. “He’s not— _right_. I don’t like it.”

“Me either,” Nathan admits, a grin ghosting across his face when he adds, “Not that I like him that much most of the time, anyway.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Audrey teases, but she doesn’t push the point. He appreciates that about her: the way she knows what he needs better than he does, sometimes.

They’re quiet for a moment. Things are fine and then they aren’t. Audrey goes tense in a way he doesn’t understand and shifts to leave.

“Are we okay?” He asks, abrupt and clumsy.

Audrey takes too long to answer.

“We’re good,” she promises, but she looks away, down at her feet. There’s something she isn’t telling him, but he doesn’t know how to ask.

Worse, he’s afraid of the answer.

“Okay,” he agrees, letting it go and wishing it didn’t feel a little bit like letting her go, too.

She presses a kiss to his cheek—a bright, technicolor point of contact just like the very first time he felt her. He leans into it without meaning to.

“Goodnight,” she mumbles, gaze directed at her feet before she disappears out the door in a hurry.

For a moment, it seems impossible to get to his feet. The feeling passes. He shuts the door and shutters the office and settles on what he imagines must be a wildly uncomfortable couch.

Eyes closed, he could be anywhere—if it weren’t for the quiet bustle of the late-night precinct business just past the walls. For once, he welcomes the extra noise. It grounds him, keeps him from floating away. If he listens close enough, he can follow along with night shift’s phone calls and breakroom chatter and ignore the intruding anxiety around Audrey and the thing they aren’t talking about. He can ignore wayward thoughts of Duke—at his house. In his bed.

What he can’t seem to do is sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for sticking with this story! As always, comments are greatly appreciated and are a huge motivator when it comes to a project as big as this. <3 Thanks again.


	3. lost in the chapters we changed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A series of untipped dominoes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From here on in, chapters may be told from multiple perspectives. These are labeled for clarity, but in case anyone finds the POV swaps a little confusing, keep in mind that I will Never write any scenes from the POV of the "alternate” versions of the characters. Therefore, scenes told from Duke’s perspective occur in the secondary Haven and any scenes from any other perspective occur in the original Haven.

**DUKE**

Duke should feel guiltier for kissing Nathan.

Guilt, it turns out, is the furthest thing from his mind when Nathan cradles his face and straddles his stomach. Duke makes a surprised sound against Nathan’s mouth, only half-awake—but when his hands find Nathan’s waist to push him away, he pulls him closer instead.

Just as Duke tries to open the kiss deeper, Nathan drifts off-center. He trails kisses down his jaw, his throat. Duke’s had dreams like this.

“I can’t stay,” Nathan sighs unhappily against his skin.

In the dreams, Nathan doesn’t leave for work.

It’s better this way. It means he doesn’t have to wrestle with the moral ambiguity of sleeping with a man who almost certainly didn’t want to sleep with him as little as two days ago. Never mind that they live with each other, now. Duke has no idea how to reconcile that part.

He runs his hands up Nathan’s back and nods in the direction of the bedroom door. “M’already in enough trouble with Audrey without making you late,” he hums. He can’t keep the smile off his face, warm and unfocused. “Get outta here,” he teases.

Nathan chuckles and presses one last kiss to the corner of Duke’s mouth before rolling off of him and out of bed.

Nathan bustles in and out of the bedroom in his rush to get ready. Rolling onto his side, he watches Nathan get dressed and reminds himself not to get attached.

He can’t keep this.

Dressed and well put together—aside from the cowlick at the back of his head that Duke privately decides not to tell him about, Nathan heads for the door.

“Love you,” Nathan calls over his shoulder on his way out.

“Love you, too,” Duke answers, compulsory and clumsy. The words get tangled together on his tongue, like a secret he wasn’t supposed to tell.

Duke lays there, staring at the ceiling, for a long time.

Eventually, he funnels his buzz of excess energy into snooping.

He starts with the practical issues: which drawers are his, which closet. The two of them have notably different styles, but all the belongings in the house have the jumbled together quality of a couple who have been living together for a long, long time. He finds shirts Nathan would never wear hung up alongside his more practical (boring) business blazers. Without the context of memory, Duke doesn’t know if the shirts were put away in the wrong place or gifts or stolen from his wardrobe on purpose.

Duke ends up with more questions than answers. Although after a little investigating, he’s fairly certain he works out which drawers belong to him.

Digging through Nathan’s side of the dresser does, however, net him a treasure trove of various strap-ons, packers, and vibrators; the sight of which sets his heartbeat stuttering and sends his thoughts—well. Nowhere they haven’t been before.

The voice telling him _this isn’t any of your business_ doesn’t ring quite as loud as the one reasoning, _the hell it isn’t—you probably bought half of these yourself, anyway_. Duke lifts a harness out of the drawer, listening to the clink of the buckles as he turns it over in his hands. Shivering, he scans the toys and wonders which get used the most.

He wonders which are Nathan’s favorites.

To wear.

To use.

Fuck.

He drops the harness and shoves the drawer closed in a hurried attempt to stay focused and stop his mind wandering further than it already has. This isn’t exactly a _useful_ line of inquiry. Sure, he found the drawer full of dicks, but he’s still got no idea which toothbrush he’s supposed to be using.

He wanders the house, but finds little of interest. A bookcase in the hallway, populated largely by the horror and thriller novels of his own collection, with a few unfamiliar, pulpy detective books thrown in. Kitchen cabinets stocked with a hodgepodge collection of mismatching dishware. A memorial picture of Garland Wuornos given pride of place on the credenza in the entryway; Duke wonders if he and Nathan ever argued about that one, and tips the photo face-down for his own petty satisfaction.

Dead or not, Duke doesn’t like looking at him.

A sense of strangeness he can’t shake follows him from room to room. He can’t put his finger on it, can’t make sense of it. Duke knows these rooms so well, he could walk the place blindfolded and still find his way to Garland’s old liquor cabinet.

(It was the first lock he ever picked, and he had plenty of practice with it. He would come over when the Chief was asleep and dig out something old and cheap and vile and they’d take turns taking swigs in giddy disgust—tucked away in some corner with their haul going pink and tipsy and triumphant.)

The surreal feeling finally clicks as Duke stands in the center of the living room. His attention catches on the warm, deep grey paint that colors the wall. Growing up, Nathan’s living room was a sickly shade of cream—too yellow to be ivory, too beige to be custard. The new grey stands in stark relief to the white of the doorframes and windowsills. It’s nice. Clean. But absolutely not the kind of color Nathan would have picked in a million years.

 _It’ll make the room too dark_ , he can imagine Nathan complaining, even though it’s a conversation they’ve never had. He imagines them both, hands full of paint swatches, in some nameless home improvement store and it digs up a new and unfamiliar ache—one he refuses to examine too closely for fear of what it might unearth in him.

He sees himself everywhere, now that he’s looking for it. He sees himself in the unusual asymmetry of the coffee table, in the new countertops in the kitchen, in the knickknacks artfully placed in the gaps of the bookshelves and windowsills, in the kitschy ocean themed bathroom he always secretly wanted.

It’s a house with _him_ in it. He lets himself linger in that, just a little: a belonging that doesn’t quite belong to him.

The rest of his snooping has less to do with what he finds and more to do with what he doesn’t.

He doesn’t find anything he can even tangentially connect back to any dealings with Haven’s underbelly—not that he expects to find an illegal shipping manifest tucked alongside the cookbooks. But he knows himself; he knows where he would hide it, if he had it. All evidence points to the fact that he doesn’t. Never did.

He doesn’t find much in the way of photos, either. That doesn’t particularly surprise him. Neither one of them was ever much the nostalgic type. Or the taking pictures type.

Maybe it’s better that there aren’t any. It would have made the whole thing feel more real, more permanent. It would make it harder to do what he needs to.

Snooping complete, Duke knows his next step should be checking in with Dwight. Unfortunately, with his phone mysteriously missing, he has no idea how to do that. Dwight didn’t exactly write his digits on Duke’s arm.

So, he follows his next best lead: his restaurant.

On the (longer than he had originally anticipated) walk back to his car, he ticks off a list of the things he knows for sure.

One: he and Bill co-run and, presumably, co-own the Second Chance.

Two: Geoff never came back to help with the restaurant. Which means he is (probably) not dead and (probably) sitting pretty in some fancy, holier-than-thou, Michelin Star spot in NYC, measuring servings out of teaspoons.

Three: Bill’s trouble never went off. Probably—if Duke had to hazard a guess—because he never got stuck trying to run the place by himself.

Which brings him to—four: the Second Chance must be doing passably well for itself.

The real problem boils down to all the things Duke _doesn’t_ know. What does he actually _do_ at the restaurant? What kind of hours does he work? What the hell is he supposed to say to Bill, when he sees him? For Bill, seeing Duke is just another Thursday. For Duke, it’s been almost a year.

He’s starting to believe Dwight’s theory about a time travel trouble. He can see the untipped dominoes in everyone’s timeline—the forks in the road. There’s something comforting about it, actually, in a sick, self-important sort of way. It’s a relief to know that staying in Haven made such an impact on the trajectories of the people around him.

But was it for the better? Or the worse?

He thinks of Audrey—of the two-month count down on a disappearance that she no longer knows about or even believes in—and feels dread drop like a stone in his stomach.

* * *

Duke gets to the Second Chance hours before it opens. He finds the door unlocked and hears the telltale sounds of prep coming from the kitchen. The dining room (and it’s strange thinking of it as that) is empty, and Duke takes his time perusing it.

All things considered, the décor looks more like the Gull than like the version of the Second Chance Duke remembers. He can see his own influence in the layout. The shark blues and cool greys are to his taste, not Bill or Geoff’s. (Bill, if left to his own devices, would try to make everything purple and Geoff always leaned green.) The result sits in an uncanny middle ground: not quite the Second Chance he inherited, not quite the Gull, either.

It is, however, populated with hideous hanging lamps that Bill _must_ have talked him into, because he would never—not in this life or the next or the one after that—have picked them out himself. He flicks one with his fingernail and it rings metallic and discordant.

“Really should’ve put my foot down,” he murmurs with a shake of his head.

A handmade bench by the door catches his eye. It only takes a second for Duke to recognize Bill’s handiwork, a rush of affection flooding forward to drown out his distaste for the lamps. A smile ghosts across his face as he runs a hand along the finished wood.

“Gotta remember to buy some of these off you, when I get back.” He imagines the bench on the wooden deck of the Gull, beneath the overhang, facing the water. He wonders if Bill can weatherproof them.

An ache carves through him at the thought of reaching out to Bill—his Bill—again. The loss of Geoff falls into stark relief, all of the sudden: as sharp and fresh as the day he died. They were two of his closest friends, but he finds himself with no idea of what he would say.

So much has happened since Bill left. And Duke never kept in touch the way he should have—never has been good at making space in his life for the things that leave it. Never knew how to broach their shared grief, in the wake of it.

Meg must be furious with him—staying away like he did.

Jesus.

Duke wanders deeper into the dining room, skimming past the tables and across to the back wall covered in framed photographs. It’s usual diner fare. One of the local little league team—although from a more recent year than when he and Nathan played on it. A few signed headshots of various celebrities who passed through. (He knows for a fact that one of them is fake.) There’s a photo of the Second Chance’s grand opening—Bill beaming with his arms slung around Duke and Geoff’s shoulders.

Longing pangs through his chest. He was halfway across the world when this happened, moving cargo in Spain. Yet, there he is in the photo: caught mid-laugh with the wind whipping his hair into his face.

He looks happy.

He hardly recognizes himself.

(The three of them used to talk about opening a restaurant, when they were kids. He’d started calling Geoff “chef” years before he ever went to culinary school. It was closer to a taunt than a compliment, although underneath the teasing lay a genuine respect that Duke would never have admitted to. Duke always knew Geoff and Bill were headed for great things. His dreams for himself got less grand with each passing year. He never dared imagined a version of that life where he would be a part of it.)

Duke has every intention to step back from the wall and leave the nostalgia behind him. When he moves, however, one last photo catches his eye.

Him and Nathan.

Gravitating closer, Duke finds himself struck with a surreal, disoriented dizziness.

He stands eye level with a picture they never took.

They stand on a beach he doesn’t recognize. The both of them barefoot and shirtless, Nathan wearing sunglasses on the top of his head while Duke wears his too low on his nose. If he had to guess, he’d say they’re in their mid-twenties.

His gaze lands on himself, shorn hair buzzed to a dark shadow on his head—a length he hasn’t worn since he was a kid, and yet there he is: grown and grinning. A version of himself he’s never met.

And then Nathan.

He never knew Nathan, at this age. At twenty-five, Duke had already put several years and several oceans between them—off on some distant shore, desperately trying to pretend that Haven, Maine (and Nathan Wuornos) didn’t exist.

He looks beautiful.

He’s flushed from the sun, wearing a smile so wide, it hardly fits on his face. Broader in the shoulders than the boy Duke left behind, but smaller than the one he came back to. He stands tall: back straight, head high, a pair of scars running pink and fresh across his chest.

Something dangerously close to tears prick at the back of Duke’s eyes as he pulls the picture off the wall to take a closer look at it. He traces his thumb across the bevel of the frame, unconsciously reverent. If asked, he wouldn’t be able to name the feeling that floods his chest—knows only that it both salts the wound and balms it. That it hurts in a way he doesn’t want to stop.

He’s startled from his thoughts by a familiar voice behind him.

“That was the last time I ever got you two to sit still for a picture,” Bill teases. He leans on his broom with a grin.

Duke forgets everything Dwight told him about laying low and playing along. He forgets everything he told himself about trying to act normal. He forgets everything except the fact that Bill is a year older than he was the last time Duke saw him and, god, he missed him.

Picture still in hand, he throws his arms around Bills neck fast enough that it startles a laugh from him. He pats Duke’s back in friendly confusion.

“Hey, buddy,” Bill chuckles. Taking Duke by the shoulders, he leans back and asks, “What happened to taking a long weekend?”

 _Now_ Duke remembers the part he’s supposed to be playing. He stumbles back, clearing his throat as he scrambles for an excuse. Tapping his fingers along the edge of the picture frame, he bumbles an unconvincing, “Oh, you know, just—uh, checking in.”

Bill rolls his eyes. He claps Duke on the shoulder before returning to his sweeping. “Y’know, believe it or not, this place _can_ function without you for 72 hours.” He shoots Duke a thousand-watt smile and relents to a teasing, “I mean, barely. But it can.”

Duke chuckles but finds himself at a loss for what to say. He can’t talk to Bill the way he would if things were normal. He can’t act like they’ve been apart; instead he has to pretend to know the things he doesn’t.

Bill rescues him from his floundering by nodding to the photo in his hands and joking, “Don’t tell me you’re getting nostalgic on me.”

In a bizarre mixture of honesty and deliberate obfuscation, Duke stares down at the picture and murmurs a quiet, “I forgot about this.”

Bill lets out a real belly laugh, then: this bright, weightless sound. “Lucky you,” he drawls. “I never forgot about the sunburn I left with, that’s for sure.”

Duke might not know this timeline, but he knows Bill. A grin cracks across his face and he shakes his head. “Over and over I tell you, you have to reapply sunscreen, and do you listen?”

Bill smiles down at the floor as he sweeps, shaking his head. “Hey, at least I _wore_ sunscreen. Geoff never even put any on.”

Carefully returning the photo the spot where he found it, Duke tries to keep his tone as casual and airy as possible when he asks, “Speaking of Chef—he up to anything new these days?”

“Hell if I know,” Bill huffs with a put-upon chuckle. “All he ever talks about is how _magical_ New York is and how _fantastic_ his career is going.”

Duke snorts, grinning in turn. “So, he’s miserable?”

“Exactly.” Bill shrugs. “Whatever. He’ll figure it out. Ooor, he won’t. And he’ll roll back into town and we’ll have to deal with his,”—he waggles his fingers—“menu concepts.”

“Oh, he’s not touching my menu,” Duke playfully retorts.

He realizes, too late, that he’s thinking about the Gull, not the Second Chance. Fear floods like ice beneath his skin—worry that he’s said the wrong thing, revealed himself for a fraud.

But Bill laughs. “I’m staying out of that one.”

He starts sweeping in the direction of Duke’s feet, shooing him towards the front door like a caricature of a ‘50s housewife. “C’mon, go enjoy your day off. You put enough hours into this place.”

Duke doesn’t want to leave, but he can’t exactly explain to Bill the real reason he wants to stay.

“Alright, alright,” Duke relents, hands up in surrender. He dodges the broom, a task which Bill has set on making as difficult as possible. “I’m going!”

Duke allows himself to be shuffled toward the door. Bill casts him a beatific grin and a two fingered salute when he chimes, “See ya Monday!” And then the door swings closed behind him.

Turning around to head into the parking lot, Duke all but crashes into Dwight’s chest. Dwight glares down at him with a disapproving expression.

Stumbling backward, Duke straightens his shirt with a sheepish expression. “Why do I get the feeling I’m in trouble?” Duke jokes.

Dwight steps aside, giving them both space. If Duke had to wager a guess, he’d say that Dwight came here looking for him, specifically, and not for any business of his own.

“I thought you weren’t going to make waves,” Dwight says.

“I’m not making waves,” Duke counters. “I’m actually very specifically _not_ making waves, for the record.”

“You could have stayed home.”

Duke snorts. “What, am I on time out?”

“No, you’re benched.” Dwight crosses his arms. He wears the look of man trying very, very hard to keep a lid on his irritation. “Until we can figure out what’s wrong with you, you’re a problem.”

“Wow, thank you,” Duke drawls, “Please, don’t spare my feelings.”

Dwight’s expression softens. “Sorry.” Changing the subject, he reaches a hand into his pocket before extending it to Duke. “Stopped by the station.” He drops a clunky, silver flip phone into Duke’s hand. “Nathan said you lost yours, and I don’t want to have to play tag every time one of us gets a lead.” He grins. “Service is terrible, though.”

Duke rolls his eyes. “Wouldn’t want you to shell out the big bucks.”

Agreeing, Dwight adds an airy, “For the record, this definitely falls under boyfriend duties and Nathan’s slacking.”

Duke huffs a laugh. “I’ll let him know you said so.”

He could excuse himself now—return home to his self-imposed house arrest and go slowly insane inside the familiar-not-familiar walls. Instead, he drops down into a chair on the deck. Dwight follows suit, taking a seat across from him.

They don’t speak, at first.

Duke watches the water, trying to wrestle a useful question up to the surface. He feels made of questions, each one stacked higher and higher into some precarious tower waiting to tumble.

Sighing, he runs a hand through his hair, tucking a stray strand behind his ear. “I take it you didn’t find anything about my—” He waves a hand. “Situation.”

Dwight crosses his arms and sinks deeper into the chair. He doesn’t avoid eye contact, but he doesn’t hold it very long either. “Nothing that hits the brief.”

Tapping the table with the pads of his fingers, Duke asks, “I changed the past, right? I mean, that’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“Never heard of the Crocker trouble affecting the, uh, time space continuum,” Dwight answers. He fights the good fight to keep a serious tone to his voice, but Duke can tell he’s just humoring him.

“I’m the only one who remembers how it used to be,” Duke insists. He needs _someone_ in the godforsaken town to take him at his word and, like it or not, Dwight seems to be the only one who even comes close to fitting the bill. “So, I _did_ something, right? Like, I’m in the middle of it.”

Dwight shrugs. “More likely that someone aimed a trouble _at_ you than that you _did_ anything.”

“I feel like I’m in the _Twilight Zone_ , dude,” Duke barks, maybe a little more sharply than he means to. “More than usual. I need you on my side here, or I’m gonna go ballistic.”

“Hey, I’m on your side,” Dwight promises. He lifts his hands in surrender. “I’m just trying not to connect dots we don’t have, that’s all.”

“Yeah,” Duke puffs, less than convinced. They sit in silence for a few moments before a lightbulb goes off in Duke’s head. “So—your buddies who know about the troubles.” He nudges Dwight’s knee with his foot. “What do they know about Audrey Parker?”

Dwight’s shoulders go a little stiff. He seems to weigh his words, to choose exactly how much he reveals and how much he keeps close to his chest. After a pause, he relents enough to offer, “She’s in the middle of all this, somehow. Troubles don’t affect her.”

“Yeah,” Duke agrees. He stares down at the table, feeling his throat go tight. “But she doesn’t—she doesn’t remember me.”

Dwight clicks his teeth. Leaning back in his seat with a sigh, he’s damnably, infuriatingly gentle when he murmurs, “Listen, Duke, I hate to say it, but… doesn’t that prove that it’s happening to _you_? And not to Haven?”

Duke’s stomach twists. He stares down at his hands. The hurried bounce of his knee is the only outward sign of the anxiety clawing its way up his throat.

“Maybe,” he murmurs. The word barely makes it past his lips: so quiet that the gentle rush of the waves almost devours it.

For a moment, despair hangs so heavy, he thinks he might drown in it.

Dwight reaches out and squeezes his shoulder. It grounds him, if only barely. “I’ll keep digging,” Dwight promises before getting to his feet. “Some troubles skip a few generations. Maybe there’s something I’ve been missing.”

It feels like Dwight’s trying to placate him—like he’s saying it just to say it, not because he really believes there’s an answer they haven’t considered, yet.

It’s kind of him.

* * *

Per Dwight and Bill’s instructions, Duke goes home.

Or—not home. Nathan’s home. Nathan’s home with the charcoal colored paint on the walls and Duke’s books in the bookcase. Everywhere feels surreal. The Second Chance is both too close to and too far from the Gull. The station is even less desirable of a locale than usual, given the distant and hyper-professional way Audrey interacts with him. His boat flat out doesn’t exist.

So, he goes “home”.

Somehow, despite it feeling like one of the longest days of his life, Nathan’s shift isn’t even over yet. The house remains unsettlingly empty when he arrives; and that’s something he isn’t used to—being in this space without Nathan or Garland or both.

Duke wastes as much time as he can picking through the paperwork in the home office that used to be Nathan’s childhood bedroom, but he finds nothing of relevance—just the hodgepodge collection of medical records, car titles, user manuals, and out-of-date insurance cards that he’d expect to find anywhere.

(So what if he’d been hoping to find his adoption records and came up empty? It’d be a waste of his time to be disappointed. Nothing but names on a page, belonging to people he’s never met and never known. It wouldn’t have meant anything, even if he found it.)

When he runs out of drawers to dig through, Duke takes to pacing the floor like some kind of lonely house husband.

A car pulls into the driveway. Duke tries to school himself into some kind of reasonable, normal activity—a mad-dash through the living room which culminates in him plucking a completely random book from the shelf and landing in an excessively casual reclined position on the couch.

It’s ridiculous, he reminds himself, to be nervous to see Nathan Wuornos. Duke has managed to interact with Nathan just fine for thirty goddamn years.

Where he expects the jingle of keys and the footfall of familiar boots, he gets, instead, the peal of the doorbell—in the same, irritating, ascending tone it’s made since the days when Duke had to stand on his tiptoes to press it.

Duke gets up, more cautious than he ought to be. Plenty of people could be on the other side of that door. Bill, maybe, here to return Duke’s cellphone which he dug out of the seam of a booth at the Second Chance. Or Dwight, with some relevant twist in the case. Might even be Julia Carr, back early from Darfur to inform him that crime doesn’t pay and this whole clusterfuck of a trouble is his cosmic punishment for moving a few legally-questionable boxes around.

He opens the door to a woman he’s never seen before. She smiles up at him from behind glasses too big for her face. Her white head of hair is lowlighted with the occasional streak of chestnut brown, left behind from the color it must once have been. Standing her full height, she barely comes up to his chest.

“Duke,” she greets with a nod. She shuffles a tower of Tupperware in her hands so that she can rest them against her hip.

He forgets to think. “Sorry, who are you?”

The woman rolls her eyes at him—a familiar, practiced impatience. “Wasn’t funny the first hundred times,” she drawls. “Your sense of humor is aging like a fine milk, sweetheart.”

She steps around him, crossing into the house without so much as a second thought. She drops her stack of Tupperware on the counter before opening the fridge and immediately setting to the task of making room.

Glued to the floor, Duke stands in the open doorway and stares.

It would be stupid to call the tightness in his chest hope. He has nothing to be hopeful about.

She seems amused by his shock. “Yes, I know I should have called,” she sighs, as though countering an argument he hasn’t even had the time to come up with. “I’m just dropping a few things off.” She finishes with the refrigerator and loops her purse over her head to drop it heavily on the kitchen table.

She smiles. She has a beautiful smile—wide and crinkled, bright eyed and fond. “The sooner you sit down and talk to me, the sooner you’ll get rid of me.”

She motions him over and he tries to keep his expression neutral when he drifts, unmoored, in the direction of the kitchen table. He doesn’t sit.

She rolls her eyes again. “Are you going to hug your mother or are you just gonna stand there and look at me?”

* * *

**AUDREY**

Nathan avoids Duke more than usual (a feat in and of itself, multiplied by the fact that Duke’s still living under Nathan’s roof). Part of Audrey sympathizes. Duke is different. Spending time with him feels surreal.

Audrey would love to simplify it to something concrete and easily digestible. It would be easy to say he isn’t himself. Isn’t real. But it goes deeper than that. Speaking with him feels like coming back to a loved one after years apart and finding them changed: finding that the two of you no longer fit together in the ways you used to. It’s lonely. Uncanny. She can’t blame Nathan for keeping his distance.

Even then, jealousy winds around her heart like butcher’s twine.

Duke looks at Nathan like he hung the moon. Cliché as it is to only truly know what you have when it’s gone, it just reminds her of how he used to look at her. Did she miss it, somehow? Before?

Or was she ignoring it on purpose?

They handle Duke with care, like an antique landmine that never went off. With no clue of the exact nature of the trouble, none of them are willing to risk a direct approach when they have no idea what it could do to him.

So, Duke shows up at the station around lunchtime, just like the day before, a box of take-out in hand. He looks at Nathan with that soft expression, speaks to him in that warm tone, rests a hand at the curve of Nathan’s back and tips closer.

She shouldn’t watch them. But jealousy and something much gentler and stranger than jealousy keep her fixated.

Nathan finds an excuse to put space between himself and Duke—babbles a thank you and sends Duke on his way without a kiss goodbye.

It isn’t fair to be angry at him for that.

She is, anyway.

When Duke leaves—after casting his usual, breezy, unfamiliar wave at her—she closes the door behind him and turns a serious expression on Nathan.

“You’re ignoring this,” she points out, which is also unfair, maybe, but not wrong.

Nathan bows up defensively. He sputters a little, struggling to find the right words when he counters, “I’m not— _ignoring_ anything. We don’t have any leads, Parker. What am I supposed to do?”

 _Stop touching him_ , some ugly, selfish part of her wants to say. _Or start kissing him_.

Dropping onto the couch, she lets out a frustrated sound and bottles up all the conflicting personal biases getting in her way. It’s a case. The fact that it’s _Duke_ doesn’t make it any different than any other case. She’s good at this. She can do this.

“Maybe it’s some kind of—perception thing,” she offers again. She suggested the same thing two days ago, but it got buried under other theories and non-leads. “Maybe he’s—I don’t know. Pulling on some different—”

She knows what she wants to say. She just doesn’t know how to untie the knot in her tongue and actually say it.

“Different… what?” Nathan prompts.

Sighing, Audrey steels herself for the inevitable awkwardness of this conversation. “Look, Nathan, I don’t have time to figure out how to be—tactful about this. So, I’m just gonna say it. With the way Duke’s acting, maybe it’s worth considering that he might be… remembering. Things.”

Nathan stares back at her, a skeptical and somewhat confused expression on his face. “Remembering things.” He echoes flatly.

Audrey has to resist the urge to drop her head into her hands. She forces herself to push forward. “It’s not my business. It’s just—” Struggling for the words, she tries a different angle. “Okay, so you two aren’t together, obviously, but maybe, when you were—if you were—maybe he’s… stuck in that headspace. Somehow.

Finally, the lightbulb goes off in Nathan’s head and he startles, breaking eye contact. “Oh.”

Audrey hates the rush of embarrassment that flares hot on her face. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was relevant,” she adds, doing her best to remain professional. It’s a case, she reminds herself. Given everything, she would ask about previous romantic entanglement no matter who was involved. The fact that it just so happens to be her two closest friends—and two people who’ve both asked her on dates—is irrelevant.

Nathan’s shoulders draw up. He won’t look at her. As well as she knows him by now, even she can’t tell if the look on his face stems from anger or shame or something softer—the weak buckle of an old bruise.

“It’s complicated,” Nathan mumbles down at the floor.

Audrey doesn’t think fast enough to stop herself saying, “Obviously.”

Nathan huffs a quiet sound; she’s fairly certain it’s a laugh. Silence hangs between them, fragile and huge. Finally, he sighs. “We were kids. It was nothing.”

She lets the statement hang without contesting it. After a moment, he walks himself back from the denial. He shakes his head, tone a little prickly when he corrects himself to, “Yes, we were together. No, I don’t think he’s— _remembering_. He’s… domestic. We weren’t _domestic_ , we were—” He waves his hand, and something like a smile manages to sneak onto his face in spite of himself. “Teenage hooligans.”

“Hooligans, huh?” Audrey asks. The anxiety from before fades into the background, replaced with a comfortable, aching fondness.

Nathan aims a smile at his feet. For a second, her chest feels so tight and warm she can hardly breathe.

“Vandalism,” he offers, smug and—dare she say it—proud. “Underage drinking. Maybe a little petty theft, not that anyone can prove, of course.”

Audrey chuckles, delighted by this side of Nathan she’s never had the chance to see. “And you two were dating? During the, uh, vandalism, I mean?”

Nathan opens his mouth as if to deny it, but the words never leave his mouth. He retreats inside himself a little. Finally, he sighs. “Yeah. For a few years. Before he—left.”

Audrey knows that part of the story. “Sounds pretty serious.”

“It wasn’t,” Nathan corrects entirely too quickly.

She lets him have it.

Changing directions, he offers an exasperated, “At least we’ve got time to figure things out,” and Audrey’s stomach does an awful, seasick somersault.

Now or never.

“We don’t,” she murmurs, unable to look him in the eye. “We don’t have time.” She can feel Nathan staring at her even when she refuses to look back.

“What do you mean?” He asks, cautious.

Audrey’s heart hammers against her ribs; she kept the secret too long and she knows it. It’s worse now than it would have been. “The Hunter,” she forces out, “It’s not a person; it’s a meteor storm. It comes every twenty-seven years. And when it does, I… go.”

Nathan maintains an almost eerie calm. “Go where?” He asks, as if there exists an answer to that question that doesn’t break both their hearts.

“I don’t know.” It feels impossible to lift her head, but she makes herself look back at him. He deserves that much. “But we’re running out of time.”

The panic on his face cuts a line straight through to the center of her. “How long?” He asks, palms pressed flat against his desk like they’re the only thing holding him upright.

Shame bubbles up like a pot boiling over. “Five weeks. Duke figured it out, before—”

Nathan interrupts, white-knuckling an anger she knew to expect. “Duke knows?” He barks.

A horrible, fragile facsimile of a laugh escapes her. “Not anymore, he doesn’t.”

The silence that falls over them feels leaden and unbearable.

Nathan stares down at his desk, unnaturally still when he finally asks, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I don’t know,” Audrey offers helplessly. It’s the truth, mostly. She’d tried, over and over, but the words kept getting stuck. Tears sting at the back of her eyes and a sudden tightness in her throat makes speaking a lot harder than it ought to be. Staring at the floor, she forces out a quiet, “I just wanna be able to say goodbye. To the real him.”

Something wet and traitorous slides down her cheek and she’s quick to scrub her face.

“So, you’re just giving up?” Nathan demands. His fury sits like a thin coat of paint on top of a hurt so bottomless, she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to fix it. Not in five weeks. Not without Duke.

“I’m not giving up!” She snaps. It’s easy to be angry, to be self-righteous even when she’s got no right to it. Her own memories don’t belong to her. Duke and Nathan—they’re the only thing in this town that’s ever been more than a lie or a legacy. They’re the only part of “Audrey Parker” that’s hers.

She stares down at the floor in an attempt to cling to the anger and stave off the threat of tears. “I’m being practical,” she insists, shoulders tense. “Every version of me that we know about has disappeared with that storm. I don’t know how to stop that.” She swallows, hating how her words sound pinched and small. “But I know the troubles. And I know Duke.”

She meets Nathan’s gaze, holding her ground against the wave of uncertainty that threatens to topple her.

“And I’m going to fix at least one goddamn thing while I am still here.”

* * *

**DWIGHT**

Rain starts to soak through the denim of Dwight’s jacket as he packs the last of his toolkit into his trunk. Mrs. Marilyn waves him off from the safety of her porch. The rain doesn’t bother him much, but with her cardigan clutched tight in her hand, she looks like she might blow away in any stiffer wind than this.

The rain is an unfortunate setback in what was turning out to be a fairly productive day. But if he’s honest with himself, he’s grateful for the excuse to pack it in early.

He spent the afternoon repairing the fence between her property and Bobby River’s, after Bobby’s trouble ate away at the wood until it looked like swiss cheese. McHugh had been the one keeping an eye on the River family. When the fences along the edge of the property started keeling to one side, he sent Dwight in for damage control.

(“Can’t you do it?” Dwight had groaned, no real heat behind the question. McHugh reached out and patted his cheek—once, twice, the third just short of a slap—and grinned.

“And show you up as the town charmer?” He teased, shaking his head. “Nah, I’ll sit this one out.”)

The coverup was easy enough. Dwight spun her a story about a termite infestation in the area, wandered around the property with a jug of Bug B Gone, and made a big show of inspecting her porch for signs of damage before declaring her “the luckiest woman in Haven” and replacing the damaged fence.

It took half the day and the new fencing still needed another coat of paint before the job was properly finished, but it was—at least—all standing upright again. She’d hovered the whole time, a thin shawl wrapped tight around her shoulders, talking about how the bugs were out of control and how the weather was warmer, this year.

“Yes ma’am,” he’d agree at regular intervals. “Most certainly is.”

She’d tried to shoo him off when the first sprinkle of rain hit, but he waved it away.

“Haven’t melted, yet. Don’t expect I’m going to.” His smile seemed to sway her, and she didn’t press the issue. She did, however, retreat to the cover of her porch, which was a nice reprieve from the chatter.

Dwight liked old Mrs. Marilyn, though. She never put much stock in the troubles, but she always seemed to show up for the community when disaster struck—usually with plates of homemade food. She was a little nosy, sure, but she never forgot a birthday or an anniversary and she always checked up on her neighbors.

Might be easier, taking care of this town, if there were more people like her in it.

“You get home and dry before you catch your death out there!” Mrs. Marilyn scolds from her doorway and Dwight chuckles.

“Yes, ma’am,” he promises as he ducks into the driver’s seat.

Without the humidity of the outside air, the inside of the truck feels cold and still—the sound of rain loud on the metal roof. Mrs. Marilyn disappears inside her house and Dwight waves before starting his car and reversing out of the narrow drive.

He’s halfway home when his phone rings. Yesterday, he asked Jordan to put her ear to the ground and see what she could dig up with the Guard that might explain Duke’s situation. He hadn’t expected to hear back so soon. (Part of him hadn’t expected to hear back from her at all. No one in the Guard had much sympathy to spare for a Crocker, least of all Jordan.)

“Got something interesting for you,” she tells him, the reception crackly from the onset of the storm.

“Good news, I hope.”

“Depends on your definition of ‘good’, I guess.” A sharp edge of humor colors her words.

“You gonna make me beg?” Dwight jokes when Jordan doesn’t follow up that statement with any more information.

“I don’t know, would keeping Brainwashed Duke really be so bad?” She jokes, although he doubts it’s really a joke at all. “If he doesn’t believe in the troubles, anymore, then that seems like one less problem for us.”

“Duke’s on our side, remember?” Dwight reminds her, patient and unyielding.

The other end of the line goes quiet for a moment. “Yeah,” Jordan agrees, sharp and distrusting. “For now.”

“What did you find?” Dwight asks, choosing to steamroll past her irritation. He’ll apologize for it later, in person, when the stakes feel a little less high. The troubles aren’t ever straightforward and they’re never good. Unless they get a handle on this, it’s bound to go bad. Dwight doesn’t know how bad, or for who, but he’s seen enough of this town to know that things always, always get ugly.

Sensing his irritation, Jordan backs off the sarcasm and answers the question. “Ever heard of the Flores family?”

The name rings a bell, but only insomuch as that he knows there are a few generations of Floreses living in town and he knows they’re troubled. But in the time he’s been cleaning up Haven’s messes, the Flores family has never been at the center of one.

“Don’t remember that trouble,” he admits.

Jordan snorts. “Yeah, that’s ‘cause they practically go into hiding every 30 years. No records of them reaching out to the Guard in decades.”

“You found some files?”

Jordan laughs. It’s an honest laugh, not the cutting one she uses on everyone else. “I’ll do you one better,” she says, voice bright and maybe a little smug. “Emilia Flores? Showed up on our front door.”

“Well, shit,” Dwight muses. He pulls into his driveway, overtly aware of the uncomfortable way that a half a day of sweat and ten minutes of rain make his clothes cling to his back. “She still there?”

“Yeah,” Jordan confirms. “She’s pretty worked up. McHugh’s been talking her down, but Kirke made her nervous, so we had to have him go take a walk before she’d even say two words to us.”

Dwight chuckles. “What about you?” He asks, more than familiar with Jordan’s prickly persona, even if he considers himself immune to it, by now.

Jordan’s tone lands somewhere between irked and amused when she answers, “Apparently I also made her nervous, so I’m doing a lap.”

Dwight smiles, but doesn’t comment. “Give me half an hour and I’ll be there.”

“I’ll stall,” Jordan offers, sounding skeptical. “But I’m not barring the door. She wants to go, she goes.”

“I know,” Dwight agrees. “I’ll hurry.”

Jordan interrupts him just as he’s about to end the call. “For the record? Crocker sure as hell isn’t worth all this.”

“Thirty minutes,” Dwight repeats simply.

Opening a text to Nathan, he taps out a succinct, ‘ _I’m picking you and Audrey up in 15 minutes. Tell me where.’_ before tucking his phone into the inside pocket of his jacket and hurrying inside.

Ever since he left the Army, long showers have been Dwight’s favorite kind of self-indulgence. It’s the only time that ever really feels like his own—even now. Because there’s always something, in Haven. Something to fix. Someone to help.

Once upon a time, Dwight promised his life to his country. When he couldn’t keep that promise any longer, he swore it to his daughter. When he failed, he gave it to Haven, instead.

After everything he lost, there really wasn’t all that much left to give.

But the time spent in the steam and the heat belongs to him. They’re the only real hours of the day that do. Today, however, there isn’t time. He takes the same rushed, perfunctory shower he spent years taking while enlisted—so fast, the mirror doesn’t even have time to fog. He towels off, gets dressed, shrugs on a waterproof windbreaker and heads back into the fray.

It’s 7PM on a Thursday in Haven, Maine, and a woman who might have the answer they’re looking for sits in a Guard safehouse.

It makes him nervous.

He knows that the Guard really does have the troubled’s best interest at heart. But the group has a history of taking axes to problems that really need scalpels. They aren’t half as organized as they pretend to be. They’ve done incredible things for this town.

Terrible things, too.

Dwight trusts Jordan. He trusts McHugh. He doesn’t trust Vince half as much as he used to. The rest of them—it’s touch and go.

When Dwight shows up at the station, Nathan and Audrey are both waiting outside—just under the shelter of the overhang. They stand as far apart as possible. Neither one seems particularly happy to see him.

“You gonna tell us what this is about?” Nathan asks as he fumbles to buckle his seatbelt.

Audrey seems to be keeping a lid on her irritation, but underneath the rote politeness, Dwight can see that she’s just as keyed up as Nathan is.

“Not entirely sure, yet,” Dwight admits. He makes the decision not to ask about the unspoken tension they’ve brought into his car and instead sticks to the topic at hand. “A woman named Emilia Flores showed up at one of the Guard safehouses. Jordan thinks she’s connected to what happened to Duke.”

“She turned herself in?” Nathan asks.

Dwight shoots him a less than pleased look. “She isn’t a criminal,” he reminds him. “She’s scared.”

Nathan puffs a disagreeing noise and Dwight shoots him a warning look. Voice serious, he adds, “I can and will talk to her myself if you two can’t be impartial about this.”

Nathan scoffs, as if Dwight’s being unreasonable by even suggesting his judgement might be impaired. Dwight doesn’t waste the energy correcting him.

“We can handle it,” Audrey leans forward to assure him, and Dwight’s more inclined to believe her judgement than Nathan’s.

“Hang on,” Nathan interrupts, seemingly hung up on a different thought entirely. “We didn’t even know the Guard existed. How did _she_ find you?”

Dwight keeps his eyes on the road. He’s been in Haven long enough to know not to make waves, especially when his entire job depends on the illusion of smooth waters. Still, he figures Nathan deserves as close to the truth as he’s able to offer him and sighs, “Honestly, Nathan? I think your old man made it a point to keep you in the dark.”

“Why would he do that?” Nathan barks.

Shaking his head, Dwight says, “Nathan, if I knew why Garland did even half of what he did, I’d be the wisest man in Haven.” He pauses, dropping into a softer, more sincere tone when he adds, “Wasn’t right, though. Way he did it.”

Nathan tucks himself against the seat, as though trying to melt backwards into it. Dwight wonders if the action is an intentional, meaningful closing off of body language or if Nathan’s lack of feeling just means he isn’t entirely sure of where he is, in the space. Either way, Dwight assumes the matter closed.

A kind of palpable tension hangs in the cabin of the car. Dwight feels separate from it, although it’s impossible to miss. Audrey and Nathan seem locked in a turmoil that’s neither his business nor, honestly, his problem. He respects the discomfort enough not to try to fill it with chatter, and the rest of the drive continues in silence.

When he parks, he stops to speak to them before cutting the engine. “This is not,” he articulates carefully, “a police interrogation. And you’re not going to treat it like one. We clear?”

Something like shock passes across Nathan’s face, even if he’s quick to smooth it over. “Fine,” he agrees, and Dwight has to catch his arm to stop him leaving the car.

“I mean it, Nathan. She’s as much a victim of this as Duke is. Remember that.”

“We know that,” Audrey promises. A thread of irritation runs under the words, but she keeps it buried. After a moment of stubborn denial, she acquiesces to a deflated. “We’ll be careful.”

The two of them both seem to think of themselves as private, reserved people. He imagines they must believe they have a good grasp on their feelings, on how they project themselves. It’s funny, almost. Anxiety radiates off of them both in a way that’s thorny and palpable.

Not that it’s any of his business—not that he really wants to get involved in what is clearly already a disaster and a half, anyway—but from an outside perspective, whatever it is that’s going on between Duke, Nathan, and Audrey?

It’s an absolute train wreck.

Jordan meets them halfway down the drive, an umbrella in hand. Her expression remains stony while he cuts the engine. Soon as he’s out of the car, she pushes into his space with a glare so sharp, it could wither a cactus.

“You didn’t say you were bringing _friends_ ,” Jordan hisses under her breath, elbowing Dwight pointedly.

Dwight shrugs, keeping his voice low as Nathan and Audrey step out of the car and get involved in a quiet conversation of their own. “You didn’t ask.”

Eyeing Nathan warily, Jordan sighs and tucks her free hand into her coat pocket. “I can’t believe you told Wuornos about the Guard.”

“He’s Garland’s kid,” Dwight offers with a shrug. “He was gonna find out, eventually.” Dropping his voice a little lower, he adds, “He got the tattoo. If I didn’t tell him, somebody else would’ve.”

Jordan recoils, expression tight. “He did _what_?” She puffs out a disgusted sound. “As what? A fashion statement?”

“Beats me,” Dwight answers. It isn’t quite the truth, but he doubts Jordan has any real interest in the complicated tangle of Nathan’s personal life. (And he doubts he could untangle it enough to explain, in the first place.)

After a moment of quiet, she pins Dwight with a serious look and asks, “Can we trust him?”

Dwight nods. “He’s good people. I worked with his dad for a long time.”

“Yeah, well, Wuornos Senior didn’t always have the troubled’s best interests at heart, either.” Jordan huffs a frustrated sound and shakes her head. Eventually, the tension in her shoulders eases and she casts him a softer expression. “I don’t like this, Dwight. But I trust you.”

Jordan nods in the direction of the door. “She’s inside.” Glancing back at Nathan and Audrey, she adds, “Make sure your friends know they’re our guests.” A dangerous smile crosses her face as she cheerfully hums, “And I will, personally, uninvite them if I have to.”

“We can hear you,” Audrey calls across the gap, a tight, unconvincing, and unfriendly smile on her face.

“Good,” Jordan chimes, cheerful in a purposefully grating sort of way. “I don’t like repeating myself.”

When Audrey and Nathan cross the distance between them, Nathan seems to offer his hand to shake automatically. She flexes the leather of her gloves and keeps her hands to herself. “Bad idea, big guy.”

Dwight figures the _Nathan can’t feel pain_ conversation can wait for later.

As she unlatches the door to the safehouse, Jordan casts Nathan and Audrey a warning look. “Careful,” she insists—less caustic than usual, but just as deadly serious. Nodding to Nathan’s arm, she sneers, “You may have the ink, but you aren’t one of us.”

“We’ll play nice,” Nathan scoffs.

Jordan leads them through the entryway, which branches quickly into an industrial, less than homey looking kitchen. On the other side of it sits a room full of mismatching couches and chairs. In the middle of one—Emilia Flores, bundled in a blanket and tucked tightly into the corner of the couch.

All the momentum, all the air, seems sucked from the room. Emilia looks back and forth between the three of them, then Jordan, then back again.

She’s a teenager.

She's their best shot at fixing this, and she can't be older than nineteen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!! As always, comments are hugely, hugely appreciated. This project is so big and complex and it really helps to know that there are people out there interested in it.


	4. the good that gives misery meaning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mistranslation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder that I don't write scenes from the POV of the "alternate" characters from the secondary Haven, so all POV switches are between the original, real versions of each character. [And labeled for extra clarity <3]

**NATHAN**

Whatever Nathan had expected from the woman whose trouble left Duke brainwashed and beside himself, Emilia Flores isn’t it.

She wears her irritation like a hazard sign—a spiked perimeter to keep anyone from noticing the anxiety simmering underneath it. She holds her chin high, round faced framed by dark curls. Even tucked into the corner of the couch, even with the fear hidden behind the agitation, she looks bright eyed and defiant.

He refuses to recognize his own childhood rebellion in her; he’s just projecting.

In the corner of the room, Dwight motions Jordan aside to whisper to her, but doesn’t quite manage to fully lower his voice.

“You didn’t tell me she was a kid,” Dwight says.

“You were in a hurry,” Jordan answers. She shoots Nathan and Audrey a pointed and unfriendly glare when she adds, “And I didn’t know you were bringing company.”

The surreal un-reality of Duke’s future lying in the hands of a child leaves Nathan frozen in place. The world spins around him—a dizzy kind of disorientation that has nothing to do with the physical reality of it. Audrey seems to get her bearings faster. She takes a seat beside Emilia, leaving a cushion of space between them.

“Hi, Emilia—” She starts, but Emilia doesn’t let her finish.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” she blurts defensively. Squaring her shoulders, she pushes, “I didn’t even think it was real. It was just some boogeyman bullshit—I wasn’t trying to hurt anybody.”

“Hey, hey, slow down,” Audrey urges. “What didn’t you think was real?”

Emilia stares down at her hands, wringing the blanket between them. “The—” She looks embarrassed, ashamed. “It sounds stupid,” she sighs, before finally murmuring, “the curse.”

Nathan doesn’t sit, but he forces himself not to pace. From the edge of the room, Jordan watches like she’s just waiting for them to make a mistake. An excuse to kick them out without the answers they came here for.

With Audrey, Emilia’s frustrated façade starts to crack into something guilt-ridden and desperate. She babbles, each word falling over the other like she can’t hold back the tide. “They said I had to stay home until it was over. But—but it had been _months,_ and nothing had _happened_. I thought—I thought it was some stupid superstition. I didn’t—”

Interrupting her, Nathan concludes, “You snuck out.” He knows that part of the story; he remembers how it felt to be nineteen and trapped under the weight of family pride.

“I was only gone an hour,” Emilia explains. “I was just getting lunch with my friends. I didn’t think—”

“What happened, Emilia?” Audrey asks.

Emilia hesitates. She stares at the distant wall, expression tight and searching like she wants there to be a different answer to Audrey’s question—like she could will it into existence. Finally, she says, “Somebody made a wish.”

“A wish?” Nathan turns a puzzled expression on her. “And you did something?”

“I don’t know,” Emilia huffs, the frustration leaking back through. She draws her shoulders up, shaking her head. “I… felt it. Like—like when you fall in a dream. He made a wish, and everything tipped.”

Dwight bolts to attention. “That’s why the name sounded familiar,” he says, “The Flores family—it’s a wish granting trouble.”

Nathan can’t figure out how, exactly, everyone else is staying so goddamn calm about the whole thing.

“That doesn’t make any sense!” he barks, “So, what? He wished to get totally fucking lobotomized?”

“Easy, Wuornos,” Jordan snaps, her expression gone icy and dangerous.

Emilia glances up at them, only to quickly stare back down at her lap. Discomfort radiates off her in waves. “I don’t think that’s him,” she mumbles down at the floor.

“What do you mean it isn’t him?” Nathan asks—sharp, but less so than before. He watches Jordan out of the corner of his eye.

“I don’t know, I’ve never done it before, but—” Emilia shakes her head. “Mom says that the wishes don’t happen… here.”

“Here,” Nathan echoes flatly.

“I didn’t think it was real,” Emilia pushes, defensively. “But the wish is—it’s a place.”

The words bounce off Nathan: useless and obtuse. It all feeds into the white noise that he refuses to call panic. He lets it be anger, instead. Frustration. Something tangible and understandable and familiar. Whipping around to face Dwight and Jordan, he demands, “How was this not on anyone’s radar? I thought the Guard was supposed to have a handle on dangerous troubles?”

“It’s not exactly that high on the priority list, Nathan,” Jordan barks back. “The Flores trouble affects—what? Two? Three people every twenty-seven years? They take care of it themselves. We have bigger shit to worry about.”

Audrey ends the argument before it has a chance to bubble over with a quiet, firm, “We don’t know how it works, yet.” She nods to Emilia. “You said the wish was a place. What does that mean?”

“It sounds crazy,” Emilia mutters, retreating further into the corner of the couch.

“Try me,” Audrey urges.

Emilia sighs. She wrestles with the words. “The wish is like—it’s like its own version of that person’s life. When they make it, they… swap. With the version of themselves they wanted to be.”

“So, he’s a fake?” Dwight asks.

The feeling Nathan refuses to call panic comes to a head.

“How do you know they go anywhere at all?” He snarls.

He paces. The momentum feels good, insomuch as anything _feels_. He’s aware of it in a way he isn’t aware of much else. Gesturing at her, he asks, “How do you know your trouble doesn’t just brainwash the originals?”

She meets his fury with a quiet defiance, sitting up straighter, looking him in the eye. “Because one of them came back.”

“Sorry,” Audrey cuts in; the white-knuckled grip she’s been keeping on her own calm slips, just barely. “Did you say _one_? Like, _only one_?”

Emilia’s defiance wilts into shame. She curls in around herself. “It’s all just—family stories,” she mumbles. “It was a long time ago. I don’t really know the details. But… my mom used to say that they have to _want_ to leave. And they usually just—don’t.”

“The other place is that good?” Nathan scoffs.

Emilia shrugs, at a loss. “It’s what they wanted.”

“Yeah, but what’s the catch?” Nathan pushes. “They can’t just get everything they ever wanted. Nothing good comes out of the troubles.”

“The catch,” Dwight echoes, voice level, “isn’t for them. It’s for us. Right? ‘Cause they get what they want, and we get stuck with the photocopy.”

Emilia nods, although she looks more confused than anything. The cosmic implications of this are over her head. She’s just a teenager, caught inside her own family’s legend. Even if her parents had treated their trouble as something true—a secret instead of a story—how could something like this ever feel _real_ until it was actually happening? Nathan spent years living with a trouble that was _tangible_ , that was _immediate_ , and he still tried to deny it.

Seeing her looking so lost only amplifies the helplessness trying to strangle him. He feels like a pot boiling over.

“So that’s it?” He asks, “We can’t get him back?”

Jordan snorts. Crossing her arms, she mumbles a caustic, “Haven’s better off.”

“Watch it,” Audrey snaps, sharp but a lot calmer than Nathan feels, in that moment. She turns her attention back to Emilia. Despite what’s clearly a considerable effort, she isn’t able to completely soothe the hard edge from her voice. But it isn’t anger that has her honed down to a knife’s edge. It’s fear. A buried, muffled fear, but fear all the same. Nathan doesn’t recognize it on her. Audrey isn’t scared of anything.

“There’s gotta be something we can do, on our end,” Audrey urges, “What did Duke wish for, exactly?”

That much seems obvious. “A better life, right?” Nathan interjects, his tone still prickly with frustration. “A good childhood or something.” It hits the brief. Duke’s stable. He isn’t drinking. When he talks about his family, he uses names Nathan’s never heard before.

Emilia frowns, trying to remember back to that moment. “No, it wasn’t that,” she murmurs, shaking her head. “It was—I think it was something about a fishing trip?”

Nathan’s struck by the sensation of losing his balance: a sudden, intense vertigo that has nothing to do with his inner ear and everything to do with the static stuffed like cotton into his brain.

It doesn’t make sense.

Nathan told Audrey, once, that he didn’t think Duke was even sorry.

“He said what?” Nathan asks; his voice sounds funny—too far away. Too small.

Emilia glances around, obviously uncomfortable. “Sorry, I don’t remember the exact words. Something about not wanting to go on a fishing trip? I don’t know.”

Audrey turns over her shoulder, staring wide eyed up at him. “He wished he’d never hurt you,” she murmurs, understanding dawning on her face.

Reality floods back in all at once—a rush of sound and light and color, the feeling-non-feeling of being tossed back on his feet.

Denial is the first thought to surface.

“No, it—it has to be bigger than that, right?” Nathan urges, “I mean, the—the new Duke he’s not—it’s not like it’s just the fishing trip. He’s got a totally different life. It _can’t_ have been the fishing trip.”

Emilia counters with a terse, “Well, that’s what he said!” She picks at the fraying hem of the blanket in her lap. “We’re not genies. It’s not a one-to-one wish.”

“Actually,” Dwight interjects, something just off-center of amusement coloring his voice, “That sounds exactly like a genie.”

Not a one-to-one wish.

“So, it’s not what he wanted,” Nathan mumbles. He feels like he’s trying to catch smoke in his hands.

“It’s what he wanted,” Emilia corrects. “Maybe not _how_ he wanted it. But—”

Jordan nods, pushing away from the wall. “But people wouldn’t stay if it wasn’t perfect.”

Nathan can’t seem to get his bearings. Who is he, in this other life Duke’s living? What version of himself is it that Duke really wants?

He hates himself, just a little, for the first easy, awful, untrue answer that springs to mind. He hates that a small corner of himself can’t let go of the doubt that he isn’t enough for Duke. Too boyish a girl and not measured a man.

He _knows_ it isn’t true. He and Duke fractured for reasons that had nothing to do with their bodies. But the question sinks like a thorn in the back of his brain.

What kind of man would Nathan have to be for Duke to want to _stay_?

He’s shaken from his thoughts by Dwight’s calm, low voice. “Is there anything we can do to talk to him? Tell him it isn’t real?”

“I don’t know,” Emilia sighs. “I don’t think so. It’s just some old, family ghost story.” She lets out a helpless, humorless laugh and drops her head into her hands and admits, “I thought it was just the kind of thing you say to scare kids into doing their chores or whatever.”

She sighs and looks around the room at each of them. “That’s all I know,” she promises. “Can I go home, now?”

Audrey looks almost as lost as Nathan feels, but she nods toward the door. “Yeah, you can go. Thanks for talking with us.” She looks to Nathan, confirming when she says, “I guess we’ll follow behind you, see what your parents might know about it.”

Emilia, already upright and halfway to the door, comes to a complete stop. She turns wide eyes on all of them. “Like, tonight?”

Nathan tries to keep his voice as level as possible when he explains, “We’re on a pretty tight schedule.”

“Not tonight,” Emilia urges, turning her focus back on Audrey. “Please, they don’t even know what happened. I can’t have cops showing up on the front door, I’m already gonna be in enough trouble.”

Nathan feels the same agitation he’s been trying to outpace all night start to bubble its way to the surface again. “Ms. Flores,” he says, clinging to his professional voice to avoid letting that irritation loose. “I’m sure you can imagine why we can’t really afford to lose any time, here.”

“You can come first thing in the morning,” she promises, splitting her attention between Audrey and Nathan. “Just—give me a chance to talk to them, please. They probably won’t even open the door for someone outside the family, right now.”

“The Floreses _are_ pretty hard to get a hold of once the troubles hit,” Jordan offers with a half-shrug. “Kid’s probably right.”

“Just let me explain what happened. And tomorrow you can ask them anything you want.” Emilia looks back and forth between the four of them, and finally Nathan relents.

He checks in with Audrey—a wordless set of looks exchanged between them—before sighing, “Okay. But we’ll be there bright and early, tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” she puffs. “And just—one more thing. It’s probably obvious but—you can’t say the word ‘wish’ in our house.”

“Thank you, Emilia,” Audrey says. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

Emilia scurries out the door like a bullet from a gun. The four of them are left behind, staring at each other in the sudden quiet.

“We have to talk to her parents,” Audrey sighs. She crosses her arms tight over her chest, rocking back on her heels. “See what else they know. Maybe they’ve got a better grip on how this works than she does.”

“They better,” Nathan murmurs, his voice cold and quiet.

Jordan casts Dwight a cautious look. “Do I need to be worried?” She asks him, plenty loud enough for Nathan and Audrey to hear. It seems purposeful. She lowers her voice when she asks, “Do they need an escort, tomorrow?” Her voice drops again, and he doubts anyone who didn’t have hearing like his would be able to catch it from so far away when she adds, “Or a tail?”

“No,” Dwight promises, but he pins them both with a stern, meaningful expression. “Nothing to worry about.”

* * *

**JORDAN**

Jordan catches Dwight’s arm on his way out the door, spinning him back around to face her. Even with her gloves on, Jordan is cautious of touch. Any mistake, any sudden movement, could bridge the gap and send someone buckling. But the trust between her and Dwight runs deeper than the guarded way she interacts with the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, Nathan and Audrey are either too clueless to notice Dwight’s lagging behind or have the good sense to keep their distance. This early into knowing them, she wouldn’t put money down on either option just yet.

Ever since Emilia mentioned that Crocker was a fake instead of the original, Jordan’s been caught up in a thought she can’t shake.

“The fake,” she asks, voice low. “Do you think he’s troubled?”

Dwight makes The Face. The face that means ‘careful’ or ‘easy’ or ‘I don’t like where this conversation is going’. She holds her ground and eventually Dwight sighs, “If he is, I don’t think he knows it.”

Jordan recognizes the minefield of a conversation she’s meandering her way into—a subject that would be touchy enough if the only real road bumps were the two badges standing in their driveway. But Crocker got his hooks deeper than that.

“Listen,” she sighs, crossing her arms and pinning him with a look. She keeps her voice gentle—or, at least, as gentle as it ever gets. “I know he’s your friend. I’m not saying we should do anything drastic, here. I’m just saying… you know. Might save a lot of lives, keeping Crocker in the dark.”

Dwight shakes his head. “How long d’you think that’ll last? Plenty of the Rev’s old disciples waiting in the wings.”

“But he _isn’t_ a Crocker. Not technically. Doesn’t matter who tells him if he doesn’t have the curse.” It feels foolish to have to spell it out for him, this way. Dwight has always been a big-picture type. But, in the end, everyone’s got their blind spots.

“I get it,” Dwight reassures her, “But Duke—the original Duke—he’s not who you think he is.”

Clicking her teeth, she does her best to soften the sharp smile that cracks her face. “I just don’t think you’re impartial on this one, Dwight. Sorry.”

“You trust me?” Dwight asks, but it hardly counts as a question when they both know the answer.

“With my life.” She casts him an exasperated glance.

“Then trust me when I say that this town is safer with Duke in it than without him,” Dwight urges, his voice low and important. “He isn’t his father.”

Jordan huffs a frustrated sound. It’s like Dwight is _this close_ to being on the same page as her, and just when everything starts to fall into line, he veers off into this unrealistic, idealized version of the way he wants things to be. She’s left playing the bad guy, unwilling to prioritize the Haven she wants over the Haven she’s got.

“Maybe if it was just Simon, I could believe you, but—” She shakes her head. “Dwight. Every generation of Crocker has gone down this road. Every. Single. One. Maybe—” She sighs and gestures helplessly. “Maybe the Flores trouble is the best thing that could have happened. For any of us.” She gentles, looking meaningfully up at him. “It’s _kind_ , isn’t it? He’s got everything he ever wanted. Who are we to take that from him, now?”

A quiet settles between them. Dwight stares down at his feet and chews his bottom lip, seeming to think over everything she’s said. And she’ll give him that—stubborn as he is, he listens. He cares about this town and he cares about doing what’s right for it.

His question, when it finally comes, isn’t the one she’s expecting.

“Would you want it?” Dwight asks. “Even if you knew it wasn’t real?”

She takes a step back, dizzied by the idea. For a moment, all she can do is stare down at the worn, familiar leather of her gloves—the way it flexes when she draws her fingers into fists, the sound, the stifling warmth.

For a long while, she still remembered what touch felt like. The details, now, have started to go fuzzy around the edges.

Swallowing around the lump in her throat, her voice remains even and steady when she admits, “Honestly, Dwight?” She takes a step back, tugging the gloves higher up her wrists. “I don’t know.”

* * *

**DUKE**

Angela. That’s what Dwight had said his adoptive mother’s name was. Angela.

She sits across from him at Nathan’s kitchen table and moves her glasses to rest on the top of her head.

“You look tired, sweetheart,” she comments.

His own mother—his real mother; his birth mother, for whatever that was worth—used to say the same thing, on the rare occasion she dropped in when he was a teenager. _You look tired_ , she said. It was always a jab, a thinly veiled insult.

Duke can’t find the double meaning in Angela’s tone. Her gentleness feels alien, but not dishonest. It reminds him of Nathan’s mother, of the little he can remember of her, which kicks up the dust around an ancient, childish jealousy he thought he’d forgotten.

He laughs—always his first weapon of self-defense in uncomfortable spaces. He waves off her concern.

“Things have been busy at—” He stops. He almost says the Grey Gull. “The restaurant,” he finishes, awkward and not quite right.

She catches the stumble and meets it with a smile. If the stakes were different, he’d think they were playing a particularly contentious game of poker. As things are, she simply taps her nails against the table and asks, “Good busy or bad busy?”

Leaning back in his seat, Duke extends his arms in a broad, sweeping gesture. “Is there a bad busy when you’re running a restaurant?” He jokes a little weakly. It earns him an eye roll and a swat.

“You know damn well what I mean,” she grouses. His imagined poker game vanishes under that burst of fond irritation.

She reminds him a lot of Gloria too, now that he thinks about it. The resemblance pulls something tight in his chest.

He doesn’t have a real answer to her question, but—he supposes—in the end, it doesn’t matter exactly what he says. He thinks of the Gull, bustling with customers and well-stocked: such a well-oiled machine, she practically runs better with him gone than she does with him there.

“Good busy,” he decides. “Not exactly how I imagined my life turning out, but it’s doing just fine.”

She casts him a regretful smile. “Sorry I couldn’t afford to send you to one of those fancy cooking schools, kiddo.” The sincerity startles him.

“No, I just meant—” He rushes to correct, only to stop in his tracks. He can’t exactly admit that he thought his life of crime would drive him to an early grave well before _restauranteur_ showed up on his resume. He puffs out a sigh, knocking his knuckles against the tabletop. “It’s good. I’m happy there.”

The remorseful hue leaves her expression and she chuckles softly. Kicking him under the table, she tells him, “You work too hard. I’m proud of you.” Shaking a finger at him, she says, “You’re a menace, but a damn good one.”

Aiming a bashful smile at the tabletop, Duke jokes, “That _is_ what it says on my business cards.”

“Well, you learned from the best.” Angela settles back smugly in her chair and folds her hands over her stomach.

Duke finds himself as eager to turn the conversation away from himself as he is to learn about the woman in front of him. “How are things with you?” He asks, purposefully vague. He isn’t sure what sort of things he ought to already know.

“No stranger than usual,” she says, waving the question away. “The dogs miss you. You should visit more.”

Duke bites down on a grin. “For the dogs,” he jokes flatly.

She maintains the absolute sincerity of her expression. “For the dogs,” she agrees. “Just the dogs, and no other reason.”

A thought seems to occur to her suddenly and she adds, “Oh, some kids have been breaking into that empty house up on Marston Road. The old Holloway house? Keep seeing lights at all hours of the night. I’ve put in a couple of complaints, but the only people who ever show up definitely aren’t police.” She waves a hand. “Not my business, honestly.”

It’s just a hunch, but something about that pings Duke’s interest. He sits forward in his chair. “What kind of people?”

She considers the question. “Always the same two. Big guy. _Real_ big. Built like a redwood. And then a dark-haired woman with black gloves. Gloves! In this heat wave! Ha! Anyway, they poke around for a while, but they never go inside.”

The woman in gloves doesn’t ring a bell, but Duke does know a particular sasquatch who falls into the category of ‘built like a redwood’.

“The big guy—” Duke asks, “Blonde? Beard? Got a brow line you could land a plane on?”

Angela quirks an eyebrow and sits forward in her chair. “You know him?”

“Yeah, he’s, uh—a regular.” It’s close enough to the truth, and Duke has a feeling that Angela might be the sort of woman who could spot an all-out lie from a mile away, so he keeps things as honest as he knows how to. “He’s a good guy. You can trust him.”

Angela offers him a skeptical expression. “Well, he hasn’t done much, yet. Still all kinds of noise coming from that place. His partner seems more capable, honestly. Very pretty. Very angry. I like that in a woman. I’d trust her first.”

Duke bubbles with surprised laughter. “I’ll tell Dwight you said so.”

“Oh, no—don’t!” She laughs, dramatically laying a hand across her heart. “He seems like a gentle soul. I’d hate to hurt his feelings.”

Barking a delighted cackle, he snorts, “Gentle?! He’s six foot five!”

She shakes her head, wagging a finger at him. “That man gardens in his free time, I would put down money on it.” She taps the table pointedly, a gleam of challenge in her eye. “Right here, right now. Twenty bucks.”

Duke sits, gob smacked, in the realization that: “I—I’m not betting against that.”

“Ha!” She hoots in smug delight. Getting up from the table, she says, “Well, next time you see him, you tell him that if he’s gonna sniff around that place he oughta at least put a better lock on the door.”

“Will do,” Duke promises her.

Whatever it is turning the lights on at the Holloway house, it probably runs a lot deeper than teenaged vandalism if it’s got Dwight and his trouble-minded buddies involved.

He gets up when Angela does and follows her to the front door.

She stops in her tracks, turning suddenly. “One more thing,” she says, her tone quiet and important. “Nathan. He’s good to you, isn’t he? Still?” She cracks a smile. “I know you hate it when I ask.”

“Yeah, Ma,” Duke murmurs, a little shocked by how easily the word falls from his mouth. “He is.”

For just a moment, just an instant, it feels true.

“Good,” she says, pleased and succinct. Shaking a finger at him, she warns, “You tell that boy that I don’t care if he’s chief of police, now. If he breaks your heart after all these years, I’ll break his arms. I wasn’t scared of his father and I’m not scared of him, either.” She softens, her whole face going warm with a smile. Patting his hand, she adds, “And tell him I’m sorry I missed him.”

“I will,” he hears himself answer, but he feels outside of himself—a third-party observer in a dream, watching a life that should be unfamiliar and yet feels more real, in that moment, than the world outside of it.

She has to stand up on her tiptoes and yank him down by the back of the head to plant a kiss on his cheek. There’s something routine to the action, like she’s been doing it for years—since he got too tall for her to reach, probably.

“Wash that pie tin before you give it back this time, you barbarians,” she calls over her shoulder. “I love you.” And then she’s gone, the door closed behind her, Duke returned to his empty house that isn’t his—his life that doesn’t make sense.

His next breath goes in wrong. It sounds thin and pinched. The room swims. He tries to get a hold of it, but it’s like trying to catch a fish in his bare hands.

Of all the things of these last two days that could have sent him off the deep end, it seems as comical as it does fitting that the one that really gets him is a pleasant, twenty minute conversation with an old woman he’s never met.

He can imagine it, is the problem. He can imagine coming home to a house that wasn’t empty, wasn’t falling apart. To a fridge full of food. He can imagine Angela in the crowd at his little league games and his high school graduation. (He can imagine _attending_ his high school graduation—an event he mocked and avoided, outright.)

One conversation with Angela and suddenly so much of this new life clicks right into place.

Of course he never left. Why would he?

Haven would have been a home.

Home, Duke’s realizing, is a word he never quite understood the meaning of. A mistranslation. When the people around him used the word _home_ , they weren’t saying the same thing he was.

When the first sting of tears touches the backs of his eyes, it’s tempting to give into the drama of it all—sink to the floor by the front door and really lean into it. He keeps it together. He stumbles to couch and rests his elbows on his knees and buries his fingers in his hair and breathes. In for eight. Hold for four. Out for eight. Hold for four. Hold for four. In for eight. Hold for four. Hold for four. Hold for four. Out for eight. Hold for four. Hold for four. Hold for four. Hold—hold—hold—hold—don’t forget to breathe. Don’t—

He sucks in a wet and fragile gasp.

What might be a sob snowballs into an absurd, off-kilter laugh before losing momentum and sputtering into a weak hiccup of a thing.

The line between the life he remembers and the life the trouble made for him gets blurrier and blurrier. He keeps waiting for the catch, for the other shoe to drop. Instead, a greying woman with a sharp sense of humor swings through with a few casseroles and suddenly he’s ten years old again—caught up in the wistful, hypercolor after-school special kinds of daydreams he had as a kid.

A family. A home. A couple dogs. Other people had lives like that, not him. He’d given up even _wishing_ for it years and years ago.

About five minutes into is non-meltdown (and it _isn’t_ a meltdown; he has cried, he thinks, a perfectly reasonable and respectable amount of time for someone in his particular situation), it occurs to him that he can’t be a sniffling mess when Nathan gets home.

He makes his way to the bathroom in a haze.

The pathetic visage of his own reflection drags a real laugh out of him.

“All this over a pie tin and some small talk,” he scoffs with a chuckle, rubbing his eyes. Puffing out a long sigh, he breathes, “You’re okay. It’s fine.”

This isn’t the weirdest thing Haven’s thrown at him and he’s damn sure it won’t be the last.

He feels more himself under the cool spray of the showerhead. He closes his eyes and counts his breaths—properly, this time. He imagines the panic as a physical thing, something separate from himself, swirling down the drain with the dust of the day.

It helps.

Duke expects a similar “whose-whose” kind of problem with the shampoo bottles as he’s been having with their blue and green toothbrushes and equally unspecial variants of mint toothpaste. But the contents of the shower turn out to be shockingly obvious.

He spots the same shampoo and deep conditioner he’s been buying for himself for years—a constant in any reality, apparently. Beside it sits a pair of different—although no less high-end—shampoo and conditioner that must be Nathan’s. Examining the bottle of Nathan’s shampoo, a smile crosses his face.

Duke bought these. He knows, because Nathan wouldn’t ever spend that kind of money on something like haircare and because even if he did, he wouldn’t know what he was looking for. (He knows, also, because there’s a downright blasphemous bottle of 2-in-1 hiding at the far corner of the tub that he must have bought them to replace.)

Duke finishes his shower, stepping out of it shockingly calm and serene compared to how he stepped into it. He’s in the process of tugging a soft, over-sized t-shirt over his head when he hears Nathan’s keys in the door.

Funny how quick he got used to that.

“You’re home late,” Duke comments idly, toweling his hair as he wanders into the hallway.

Nathan shrugs out of his jacket, hanging it up. “Yeah, things have been ridiculous lately. We’re getting twice as many reports as usual.” He pauses, seeming to catch himself, and concedes, “Sorry, no cop talk at home. Forgot.”

He steps forward and pulls Duke into a loose hug, pressing a kiss to his temple. Duke feels him smile up against his hairline.

“You used my shampoo,” Nathan hums.

Duke’s arms find their way around Nathan’s waist seemingly of their own accord. “Did I?” He singsongs, “Wasn’t paying attention.”

“Smells good,” Nathan purrs. He presses his nose against Duke’s hair, and Duke is struck with the peculiar ache of wanting something he technically already has. “Smells like me.”

Duke means to pull back, put some space between them, clear his head. But when he turns, Nathan meets him in the middle and all at once distance is the furthest thing from his mind. He sighs against Nathan’s mouth, letting the kiss linger.

He can’t keep this. He shouldn’t let himself get attached.

“Hey,” Nathan murmurs, carding his fingers through Duke’s damp hair. “You okay?”

Duke knows his eyes are still a little swollen, knows he was never good at lying to Nathan even when they were at their worst. He wonders if this version of Nathan can see right through him, too.

“Yeah,” he says. “Long day.” Like any good lie, he buttons it with the truth: “Glad you’re home.”

Nathan’s face goes warm with a smile. “Me too,” he murmurs against Duke’s lips when he leans in for one more, easy kiss before untangling them and wandering into the kitchen.

Left standing in the hallway, Duke resists the impulse to touch his fingers to his mouth, but only just.

“Oh man, Angela was here?” Nathan calls from the kitchen. He stands in front of the open and newly jam-packed refrigerator. “And I missed her?” He straightens up and glances over at Duke. “Scale of one to ten, how mad at me was she?”

Duke can’t stop the grin that cracks across his face. He crosses his arms, leaned against the doorway of the kitchen, watching Nathan and feeling entirely more at home— _home_ —than he has any right to. “Eeh, two out of ten,” Duke offers brightly. “She did threaten to break your arms, though. Unrelated reason.”

“Worried mom stuff?” Nathan asks with amusement.

“Worried mom stuff,” Duke confirms, even if the words feel a little strange in his mouth.

Nathan abandons the fridge and steps back into his space, hands finding Duke’s waist like they’ve done this a thousand times before. He hovers in a way that makes Duke’s heart nearly stammer from his body—pressing forward like it could squeeze out from between his ribs.

Arms looped around the small of Duke’s back, Nathan presses a warm—more than _warm_ —kiss at the crest of Duke’s jaw and hums, “How many more years do I have to take care of you before your mom believes I’m not gonna run for the hills?”

“At least twenty more,” Duke jokes, mouth dry, and Nathan cackles, head tipping back in delight.

It’s shockingly easy to play his part, as if he’s always belonged here. It’s hard to be sure how much of that stems from years of running cons and how much is beyond him—tangled up in whatever trouble turned his world on its head in the first place.

The words don’t feel like lies, is the problem. They trip off his tongue without forethought, without calculation. He doesn’t remember Angela, but he feels like he _could_ —like a dream caught right at the edge of waking, in the perilous moment before the details start to disappear. Like he could sink into the depths of himself and find the memory floating just past where the light fades out. Like he could reach out and grab it if he wanted to.

And he wants to.

It would be easy.

The thought of Audrey—of the Hunter, the troubles, of everything they’ve done together and everything they haven’t had a chance to _have_ —brings him back. Keeps him grounded. He knows what he has to do. The smoke and mirrors of this place won’t distract him from that.

Nathan brings him back from the whirlpool of his thoughts. He runs his hands up Duke’s sides, rucking up his shirt with the motion, and the whole world narrows down to the two of them.

“I love you,” Nathan murmurs up against the seam of his mouth. Easy, thoughtless, like it’s just something they say. Like it’s something they’ve said for years.

Duke’s voice comes out hushed and teasing—an attempt at disguising something deeper beneath it. “Run that by me again?” He teases, and Nathan laughs, and it’s a beautiful sound.

Nathan holds him by the waist, pulling him closer. “You forget already?”

Duke’s hands find purchase in the front of Nathan’s shirt. “Humor me,” he murmurs.

Nathan noses the crest of his cheek. “Been in love with you since fifth grade,” he whispers, voice bright and amused. “You know that.”

“Yeah,” Duke croaks. It’s a miracle his voice comes out steady at all. “I know.”

* * *

**AUDREY**

By the time they finish talking to Emilia, Audrey feels exhausted and hollow. For each answer they find, two new questions take its place. She thought she was used to the troubles, that they couldn’t surprise her anymore. But wishes? Fakes? Somehow, even in a town filled to bursting with the impossible, it just seems too—strange.

The Duke of the last few days acted oddly, sure, but—a complete replacement? Some kind of doppelganger filling his place? She’d looked him in the eyes, spoken with him, seen the same familiar warmth he wears differently than everyone else.

The rain has stopped by the time Audrey, Nathan, and Dwight pile back into his car, although the gravel and dirt drive has gone muddy and the tires lurch in their first rotation. For a while, all three of them seem too caught up in their own thoughts to make small talk.

“Your friend didn’t seem to like us much,” Nathan mumbles pointedly, partway through the drive.

Dwight doesn’t rise to the bait, what little of it there is. He keeps is eyes on the road, tone airy when he agrees, “Don’t much expect she would.” He glances down at the edge of the tattoo that peaks out from under Nathan’s sleeve. “You probably wouldn’t like me much either if I put on a plastic badge and called myself the Chief.”

From her spot in the backseat, Audrey only just barely catches sight of Nathan tugging his sleeve to cover the mark.

“I thought it was a,” he waves his hand, voice terse, “Symbol.”

Dwight casts him a patient (if patronizing) grin. “And what, exactly, do you think symbols are for, Chief?”

“Point taken,” Nathan murmurs dryly.

“Look,” Dwight offers—an olive branch of sorts, “The Guard—they’re in it for the right reasons. They believe in protecting this town, same as you and me. But they don’t operate well in shades of grey, alright? Now that you’re on their radar, you better make damn sure you don’t give them a reason to think you’re gonna be a problem.”

Audrey leans forward into the space between the seats, her expression clouded. “That sounded an awful lot like a threat, Dwight,” she says, careful.

Dwight sounds genuine when he says, “It isn’t. Just some friendly advice from somebody who got in too deep.” He glances over his shoulder at her. “Jordan’s a little short-tempered, but she’s good people. Can’t say that about all of them.” He sighs. “Word’s gonna get out that you’re helping Duke. Probably won’t go over well. Just want you to be ready for that.”

“Thanks, Dwight,” Audrey says, although anxiety at the implications of Dwight’s warning lift the hairs at the nape of her neck.

The deeper she looks, the stranger and more tangled Haven becomes.

Dwight drops them off at the Gull. This time of night, the dinner rush has long since returned home and all that’s left are the alcoholics and the early weekenders. The place isn’t packed, but Duke has plenty of customers to keep him busy at the bar. He doesn’t spot them when they walk in.

They both hover by the wall, watching customers flood back and forth from the bar to the patio to the tables. Duke looks relaxed and happy, his eyes bright and his smile wide as he serves their drinks. He isn’t real, Audrey tries to remind herself. He isn’t Duke.

He aches to look at, anyway.

They stand there, side-by-side, in silence. After everything that’s happened, neither of them seems to know what to say. All she knows is that the man behind the bar wearing Duke’s face isn’t the same man who pulled her out of ocean—not the one who asked her on a date she never showed up to or the one who dug up the answer to the Hunter.

She misses him; the feeling becomes more acute than ever, knowing that the person in front of her is an echo of what she lost.

Nathan knocks her from her thoughts with a quiet and pointed, “You too, huh?” And her heart jumps into her mouth.

Denial hits first, too big and awkward to fit words to. She turns a startled expression on him, expecting to find some kind of hurt staring back at her: hurt that she would want Duke when they’ve been so carefully building this thing between them.

Instead, he watches her with a gentle, patient understanding that cuts her to the quick.

She deflects, staring down at her feet when she mumbles, “I thought you said it was nothing.” Not an accusation, just a curiosity.

“Yeah,” Nathan sighs—not a denial, just a weary acceptance. “I did.”

Audrey’s throat goes tight. “We have to get him back, Nathan.” Her words almost give out from underneath her. In the din of the bar, it’s a wonder he hears them at all.

“We will.”

She wishes she could share his confidence. She manages a laugh so thin and pathetic, she doesn’t even fool herself. They’re quiet for a moment, tangled up in the mess of it all.

Redirecting the conversation, Audrey nods at the not-Duke behind the bar, with his familiar grin. “He, uh. He sure seems happy, with you,” she babbles. “You’re not—I don’t know. Just a little tempted? To keep the fantasy?” It’s more a joke than anything: a way to address the yawning chasm of fear that only cracks wider with every day closer to the Hunter.

Nathan huffs a laugh hardly more believable than her own. “Yeah, maybe,” he drawls, but they both know it isn’t true.

They both stand there, tucked in a dim corner of the Gull, side by side, watching Duke-not-Duke with the same expression mirrored on their faces. Neither knows how to fill the silence; no words seem to be quite the right shape. Audrey doesn’t have to speak to recognize that same gravitational pull in Nathan that she feels in herself. She wonders, a smile ghosting across her face, if it’s possible to know Duke Crocker and not love him, just a little bit.

She wonders when, exactly, she started letting herself use the word _love_.

Beside her, Nathan wears a tension on his shoulders that only gets worse the longer they wait. She realizes he must be spinning up his excuse—his reason for not going home with Duke at the end of the night like Duke expects him to.

“You know,” she says, arms crossed, eyes on Duke. She keeps her tone light as possible. Airy, unimportant. She glances at him over her shoulder. “You don’t have to feel guilty for liking the attention. It doesn’t make you a bad person.”

Nathan turns a startled expression on her. “Kinda pathetic, don’t you think? It isn’t even Duke.”

“I’m just saying,” she says, bumping their shoulders together, “You don’t have to keep beating yourself up every time he bats his eyelashes at you.”

“He doesn’t—” Nathan starts, the argument instant and automatic. Closing his mouth, he casts a tight grin down at his feet and crosses his arms. “I’m not beating myself up,” he counters instead.

Audrey puffs a disbelieving little laugh and casts him a sideways glance. “Please,” she drawls.

Nathan rolls his eyes, clinging to his denial. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” he deflects. “It isn’t him.”

“If anybody around here knows what it’s like to be a—” She thinks back to the way Dwight put it, with Emilia. The lighthearted affect to her voice stumbles, just a little. “To be a photocopy, it’s me. Alright?” She nods to Duke—Duke, who finally spotted them in their corner of the bar and who casts Nathan a thousand-watt smile that could light the whole town.

“He loves you,” she says, voice measured. “That’s real. Even if he isn’t.”

She can feel Nathan’s eyes on her, but she’s afraid to look. Softly, he asks, “Are we still talking about Duke?”

Forcing herself to look him in the eye, her voice doesn’t waver when she says, “I need you to be able to say goodbye to me.”

He stares at her like he’s been struck.

It doesn’t matter what she wants, is the problem. If she disappears a month from now, there is no following her heart, there’s only damage control. Maybe it’s misguided, or foolishly noble, or laughably self-righteous, but pretending they have a future feels wrong. It feels cruel.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him.

This isn’t the place for this conversation. It isn’t the time. But she has to grab the bravery while she has it to hold on to.

“For not telling you sooner,” she explains. Reaching between them, she finds his hand and threads their fingers together. Nathan sucks in a breath that seems entirely involuntary. He holds her hand so hard it hurts, but she just squeezes back. “About the Hunter,” she continues. “And—about Duke.”

“I’m not losing either of you,” Nathan promises, firm and unyielding and certain. “I won’t.”

It feels dangerous to hope. And yet, despite the fear and doubt elbowing for room in Audrey’s chest, in that moment every atom of her being believes him.

“Okay,” she agrees, squeezing his fingers one last time before letting them go. He runs his hand up the line of her wrist, her forearm, her elbow, before he seems to remember himself and let her go.

She meets his searching expression with a smile. A real one, despite the complicated nature of everything around them.

“Go get him.” She nods to Duke, motioning Nathan towards him. “We’ll deal with tomorrow, tomorrow.”

Nathan only hesitates a moment longer before he agrees. “Tomorrow,” he echoes; something about it feels like a promise. Feels bigger than this moment.

He heads for the bar, taking an empty seat and propping his elbows on the counter. Duke finishes closing out a tab and then b-lines for him. From this distance, she can’t hear what they’re saying.

She expects it to hurt, the same way it hurt to watch Nathan refuse Duke’s flirtations at the station—expects to be gripped by the same vice of jealousy that struck her before. But Nathan blooms, shy and tentative, under Duke’s attention and suddenly jealousy isn’t quite the right word, anymore.

She misses them the way you miss a place you visited in a dream: all at once familiar and impossible, a longing between longings, an ache between aches. There’s something almost soft about the feeling. Comfortable. She readies herself to settle into it.

And then Nathan looks back at her, over his shoulder.

And all at once, she knows she won’t be able to keep them at arm’s length.

Not that she can’t. That she refuses to. That this is where she draws her line. This is where she looks at everything she’s given to this town, everything it’s hidden from her and taken from her, and says:

_This far._

_No further._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for sticking with this story! As always, feedback and comments really, really help keep me motivated while working on this beast of an AU, so I'd love to hear what you think and how you feel! It helps to know there are people out there who are interested. Thank you again <3


	5. and it wears me down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fantasy with an expiration date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took a little longer than I wanted because a) it's a behemoth and b) I've been having some health problems that really took me out of commission for a while. I'm still juggling that and things are just generally very stressful and unpleasant. That said, I'm VERY excited to finally get to post this after more than a month of work.
> 
> And yes, I realize that Gloria wasn’t actually introduced until season four and this fic takes place in season three, but you know what? CANON IS MY PLAYGROUND AND **I** DECIDE WHAT MATTERS!!! Gloria’s a main character now!! I’ve spoken!
> 
>  ***CONTENT WARNING*:** Nathan’s POV section, midway through the chapter, involves the discussion of needles/injections in a medical context. This begins at the line: “He usually does his dose sitting on the edge of the tub” and ends at “But it had been miraculous, once.” I've included an extremely spoilery (and hugely abridged) summary of what happens in that scene in the end notes for anyone who needs it. <3

**DUKE**

Nathan changes out of his work clothes. Duke heats up one of the meals Angela left. They eat dinner. They curl up on the couch and watch TV and Nathan throws his legs over Duke’s lap and it’s so—

Normal. So quiet and easy. Duke faces the television but doesn’t really see it. His whole world narrows down to his fingers wrapped loose around Nathan’s ankle, or the rumbling chuckle of Nathan’s laugh.

Once upon a time, he’d have called a life like this ‘boring’. Somewhere in the universe, there’s a stupid twenty-two-year-old version of himself disgusted by the domesticity of it all.

When the show ends, Duke shakes himself from his thoughts and pats Nathan’s knee before lifting his legs and depositing them back on the floor. “Gotta put the food up,” he announces before retreating to the kitchen where it’s easier to breathe.

Food he understands. Nathan? Not so much.

He doesn’t turn the overhead light on, just works in the dim light over the stove and the soft glow of the TV filtering in from the other room. The inside of the refrigerator seems blinding by comparison, but he’s already used to the layout of the house. He could walk this kitchen with his eyes closed and find any saucepan or soup bowl in the place.

He’s loading the dishwasher when a familiar presence steps up behind him, chin hooked over his shoulder, hands finding his waist. Duke goes still as a statue, as though Nathan were some skittish moth he might frighten off by moving too fast.

Nathan pushes a hand underneath the hem of his shirt, his palm warm against Duke’s stomach.

“Dishes aren’t going anywhere,” Nathan murmurs up against the hinge of his jaw. Duke shivers. Instinctively, his hand covers Nathan’s—although whether it’s to slow him down or urge him on, even Duke isn’t sure.

Nathan fits up against him like he was made to: the cradle of his hips flush against Duke’s ass, their backs bowed into the same line.

Duke gathers enough of his scattered thoughts together to answer, “Well, they definitely won’t if you don’t let me finish.”

“Duke,” Nathan sighs—a soft, needy sound that Duke feels at the base of his spine and the inside of his thighs. His knees damn near give out underneath him from the word alone.

One hand still rucking up his shirt, Nathan’s other one traces Duke’s waist to his hip to his thigh. It takes all the control he has not to roll his hips, not to grind forward into the open air like he’s dying for it.

Nathan’s mouth feels impossibly hot on his neck.

Turns out Nathan isn’t as much of a tease as he pretends to be. (And that doesn’t really surprise him; Nathan’s never been the patient type.) He cups Duke through his sweatpants, squeezing him when he moans a breathy, “Really wanna be inside you. Been thinking about it all day.”

Duke stutters out a sound caught halfway between a groan and a gasp. He reaches back on instinct, tangling a hand in Nathan’s hair and clinging to him like some kind of lifeline.

“Should’ve told me before I showered,” Duke jokes weakly, his own voice giving out underneath him. Whatever suave smoothness he ever had, he’s lost his grip on it. All he knows is the heat of Nathan’s body against his, the suggestion in his voice.

Nathan sounds awful smug about the affect he’s having: drags his mouth along the line of Duke’s jaw when he hums, “What, you in a hurry or something?”

“What gave you that idea?” Duke does his best to keep his voice level, but it winds up sounding breathless even to his own ears.

Nathan laughs—an airy, gorgeous sound. He nips Dukes ear, palming his ass when he pushes Duke away from the counter and says, “Good. So, go get cleaned up. I’ll finish the dishes.”

Duke’s good sense comes rushing back in on a laugh. “That,” he chuckles, shaking his head, “is the hottest thing you’ve said all night.”

Nathan swats at him with the dishtowel for good measure.

“I’m going, I’m going!”

Duke’s hands are shaking—just a little, just barely—when he goes closes the bathroom door behind him.

He takes his time getting ready, even when he can see the eager flush on his own skin and feel his heart thundering against his ribs. He resists the impulse to rush.

Whatever this is, it’s deliberate.

He can’t claim it was some kind of accident, can’t call it heat of the moment or something that got away from him. He can’t bring himself to be ashamed.

Or he can’t bring himself to be ashamed enough to stop.

Duke walks into the bedroom to the sight of Nathan already naked, his back to the door as he steps carefully into an empty harness. Duke grips the towel around his waist like it might be some kind of tether keeping him tied to earth.

“Jesus Christ, Nate,” Duke sighs, close as he ever gets to prayer.

When Nathan turns over his shoulder, the shy, self-conscious look on his face has Duke’s heart doing laps in his chest.

“You say that every time,” Nathan mumbles, tucking his smile.

It doesn’t matter that it’s the first time he’s said it, like this. Their history doesn’t matter at all, right now. Duke crosses the space between them, one hand catching Nathan at the back of his neck to drag him into a kiss.

Nathan sighs happily into his mouth, mumbling against Duke’s lips when he tries to gesture in the direction of the bed and say, “I thought maybe you should pick—”

Duke sees the toys out of the corner of his eye, but they aren’t his focus in this moment. “In a minute,” he says, pressing closer. He pushes a hand between Nathan’s legs and whines at how slick he finds him; how hard and huge Nathan’s clit feels up against his palm.

Nathan stutters a gasp, grinding thoughtlessly down into his touch.

“Let me touch you, first,” Duke moans, somewhere between and order and a plea.

Nathan looks out of focus—open-mouthed and flushed. He nods, allowing himself to be pushed backwards towards the bed and then onto it.

He makes such a pretty picture, like that: his knees open, the leather straps of the harness framing his cunt.

Duke would call it a dream, but honestly having Nathan naked on his back is probably the least strange or dreamlike thing that’s happened to him since everything went sideways. Still, it takes his breath away. He touches along the harness, the straps just loose enough to allow his finger to slip underneath. It’s a tease, tracing the edges of where Nathan really wants him.

“Duke, please,” Nathan gasps. Easy as anything.

In that moment, Duke doubts any force in the universe could be strong enough to convince him to deny him.

He sinks two fingers inside of Nathan, his other hand braced low on his stomach to keep him from bucking. Nathan moans—whether from the pressure inside or out, Duke isn’t sure. All he knows is that, with the little leverage he has, Nathan rocks his hips down onto Duke’s fingers like he’s dying for more.

“Touch yourself,” Duke murmurs without even thinking. He wants to see it, wants to feel Nathan’s fingers bump clumsily up against his own. He wants to know exactly what Nathan likes.

Nathan’s face gone pink for more reason than one, his voice comes out shaky and strained when he groans, “Fuck, Duke.” He laughs, a thin, airy sound. “No fair. You’re the one who likes being embarrassed.”

And, oh, that rattles him—sends his thoughts careening sideways, into static, into heat and wonder and want. He never told Nathan about _that_. Hell, he never actually figured it out until years after the last time they ever shared a bed.

He damn near stutters when he answers, “Get me back for it later, then.”

“I will,” Nathan promises, oddly confident for a man biting down on his fist to keep from whimpering.

Nathan’s hand traces downwards, a long path from his chest, through the hair on his stomach and lower. He runs the pads of his fingers over his clit, cautious and exploratory and oddly self-conscious. Duke watches his own fingers disappear inside of him and bites down on a groan.

“C’mon, Nate,” he sighs, voice colored with a smile. He crooks his fingers inside of him, struck with a ripple of fresh arousal when Nathan’s back bows up off the bed and his knees drift together. “Sooner you come, the sooner you can fuck me.”

“M-maybe—maybe I just like making you wait,” Nathan stutters, breathless and blissful as he jacks himself off in earnest.

“I don’t doubt that,” Duke purrs. He can’t decide where to look. Nathan wears a pink, unfocused expression. His chest heaves with heavy breath. He rubs the flats of his fingers in frantic circles over his swollen clit. He’s gorgeous. Better than a dream (and Duke’s certainly had this dream before). He works himself up in no time at all, body bearing down around Duke’s fingers as he nears the edge.

He comes with Duke’s name on his lips, body electric and taut, mouth open for a moan that never sees the light. Duke fingerfucks him through it in slow, easy thrusts until Nathan’s pushing helplessly against his wrist.

“Enough,” Nathan chuckles—all breath and moan. He bucks when Duke dips down to kiss the pink head of his clit, shoving Duke away with overstimulated delight. “ _Enough_ ,” he repeats through breathless laughter. “My turn.”

“Sir, yes sir,” Duke teases, dropping onto his back beside him.

All at once, Nathan rolls on top of him and they’re kissing. There’s no reason for it to startle him and yet it still does. He makes a small sound against Nathan’s mouth, hands finding his waist.

Nathan grinds against his cock—a slick tease of heat and pressure. “You took forever getting ready,” he murmurs up against Duke’s jaw. “Weren’t having fun without me, were you?”

Duke laughs, a weak and breathy thing. “Maybe just a little,” he sighs. He bucks up against Nathan without thinking, chasing the heat of him, the promise of pressure. Nathan gasps bright and thrilled before lifting his hips away and off. Duke misses the weight of him immediately, even as Nathan fits in between his thighs.

“You distracted me,” Nathan tells him, playfully accusatory. He nods at the line of toys spread out on the bed beside them. “Never picked which one you wanted.”

Duke runs his hand over them. Idly, he wonders about the history of each—who bought them and when. Again, he’s struck with the sensation of being merely a visitor in this life: a world both belonging to him and distinctly separate from him.

“This one,” Duke decides, his grip landing on a piece made of soft pink silicone that flares into a wide, artful curve.

Nathan grins as he takes it from Duke’s hands. “You’re predictable,” he says.

Duke’s smile sneaks up on him. “I take offense to that,” he teases.

Duke sits propped up on his elbows, watching Nathan fit the toy into the harness. There’s nothing particularly sexy about the action in itself—a slightly clumsy and perfunctory securing it to the ring. Nathan doesn’t try to look suave. He doesn’t talk dirty. A sort of quiet settles in the room, where the momentum dips and it’s just the casual and unremarkable intimacy of wanting something together and the casual and unremarkable steps required to have it.

Duke’s heart stutters. His face feels hot.

“Sorry,” Nathan laughs when he catches Duke staring. “I should’ve done this before I put it on.”

Duke means to make a joke. Instead, his voice comes out hushed and earnest when he murmurs, “You’re beautiful.”

Nathan fumbles the toy, glancing up at him with a startled expression. He melts into a smile.

“You don’t have to sweettalk me,” he teases, leaning over Duke to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I’m already naked.”

Duke cradles the back of his neck, pulling him back in when he starts to draw away. He kisses Nathan the way he’s wanted to kiss him for the last decade. He kisses him and he doesn’t bother with the guilt or the justifications or the compartmentalizing. He kisses him and he knows—be it trouble or time travel or fever dream—that the man in front of him isn’t the same one he’s spent his whole life in love with. But he kisses him like he is.

It’s all pretend. But damn, what a beautiful lie.

Opening the kiss to something slow and filthy, Duke gasps against his mouth when Nathan drags slick fingers up the inside of his thigh and presses two inside of him. He whispers Nathan’s name like a prayer, like a plea, like it’s the only word worth remembering. He loses track of himself under Nathan’s attention—goes unfocused and shivery, needy and naked in a way he rarely allows himself.

It’s dangerous. It’s misplaced. He’s putting too much stake in a fantasy he can’t keep.

Nathan drags a kiss along his neck and the heat of it ricochets through him like a lightning bolt.

Just this once. He can have this, just this once, just for now, even if it’s only going to break his heart all the harder when it’s over.

Duke gets lost in cataloguing the feeling of every moment he’ll never get again: the drag of Nathan’s open palm down his chest to his stomach, the way he moans and sighs like he’s the one being touched, flush that paints his cheeks ruddy and sweat sheened. It’s not his Nathan. Not really. But it looks like him, sounds like him, moans his name like him.

This Nathan takes his time with him: works him up slow and intense until he’s rocking down into each push of Nathan’s fingers, shivery and all but begging for more. He trails kisses along the line of his throat and Duke tips his head back like an offering. He’d give him anything, in that moment: no part of himself he wouldn’t willingly offer up for a chance at belonging.

“Nathan, please—” Duke groans, forgoing any semblance of composure.

Nipping playfully at Duke’s jaw, Nathan asks, “You sure you’re ready?” It’s a taunting, loaded question that he already knows the answer to.

Duke’s head falls back. His face goes pink and hot, but he can’t stop the bright bubble of a laugh that escapes him when he cants his hips down towards the promise of more and blurts, “Yes. Fuck—yes.”

“Well which is it?” Nathan singsongs innocently. “Yes or fuck yes?”

Duke rocks down hard and insistent, shuddering through the peak of arousal when he feels the soft, slick head of the toy slide along the crease of his thigh. “Quit _being_ a dick and give me one instead.”

Huffing a little laugh, Nathan presses a kiss to the hinge of his jaw and hums, “Well, since you asked so nicely.”

He kneels between Duke’s thighs, taking him by the hips and dragging him lower on the bed, up into his lap until Duke’s spine bows back and it’s only his shoulders keeping him grounded on the mattress. He should have rolled over, he realizes too late. Should have hid his face, offered his back instead of his stomach. He’s too exposed.

Nathan’s hands are big and steady on his hips, his ass, the small of his back—holding him still when he shifts forward and sinks inside.

Duke’s focus fritzes to static. He bites down on a moan. Nathan doesn’t rush; he rocks up patient and easy until their bodies fit flush together. Duke’s heels slip in the sheets. Just being full isn’t enough, he wants _more_.

Eyes squeezed shut, he pleads, “ _Nathan_ —”

“Tell me,” Nathan whispers, his voice agonizingly steady by comparison. “Tell me what you want, Duke.”

Fuck. It shouldn’t undo him like this. Duke isn’t nearly this bashful, this desperate, this _needy_. And yet his body goes hot and electric and his tongue ties in knots in his mouth. Duke doesn’t look at him. He can’t.

“Fuck me,” he stammers, humiliated by his own shakiness and wanton from his own humiliation—a cycle that builds and builds and builds.

Nathan gives a shallow roll of his hips. Not enough.

“Just fuck you?” He asks, voice bright. “You don’t wanna be touched?”

Duke would laugh if he weren’t so out of breath. “Oh, fuck you,” he sighs. The tightness in his shoulders starts to unwind.

He can hear Nathan grinning even if he can’t bring himself to open his eyes and look at it. “Fuck me?” Nathan asks, his voice bright and playful. “Now you’re just being confusing.” He relents, though, shifting them so that Duke’s body lays flat against the mattress again and they both have leverage.

Any retort Duke might have had disappears when Nathan starts to move.

He’s half frantic when he drags Nathan down, flush against him—close enough that he doesn’t have to look, doesn’t have to be seen. He rocks into the push of Nathan’s hips too fast and eager, the two of them struggling to match rhythms at first. Nathan whispers his name. It sounds too good in his mouth, too intimate. Duke holds him tighter.

“You’re amazing,” Nathan murmurs up against his neck and all at once, Duke feels the threat of tears welling sharp and dangerous at the back of his eyes.

 _Don’t_ , he tries to say, but the word never makes it past his throat.

“I love it when you’re like this,” Nathan continues, punctuating the words with kisses and bites and the soft press of his tongue until the sensations tangle together and Duke can’t tell them apart. It’s too much, softer than it has any right to be.

“I love you,” Nathan says, and Duke hates how it sinks like an arrow through his ribs.

It’s too easy. It doesn’t mean anything.

“Fuck,” Duke pants, legs wrapped around Nathan’s waist, head thrown back. If Nathan hears the stutter in his voice, he hopes he confuses it for a moan.

All at once, Nathan is kissing him. Duke gasps against his mouth, arching up closer even when the smarter, self-preserving part of himself warns him it’s dangerous to get attached, dangerous to want, dangerous to let himself have this. Nathan moves in confident, steady pushes and reaches between them to take Duke’s cock in his hand.

Duke stutters upwards, suddenly cresting a wave he never saw coming. He buries his hands in Nathan’s hair, clinging to him as the thoughts scatter from his head. Things go fuzzy. They build and build and then he’s on the other side of them, easing himself back down while tears tickle down the sides of his face.

Fuck. _Fuck_.

Nathan holds him through it. He switches to slow, shallow thrusts and draws kisses up the line of Duke’s neck and jaw to his mouth.

Duke kisses him like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. Nathan starts to pull back, but Duke holds him in it just a few seconds longer.

It isn’t a goodbye. It isn’t.

When Nathan pulls back and sits up, Duke throws an arm over his eyes. Not fast enough. Nathan pauses. He runs a hand soothingly up Duke’s thigh and Duke hates the way his breath hitches.

“That was intense,” Nathan says, soft and steady and nothing like the Nathan he’s been fighting with for the last three years. He lifts Duke’s other hand to his mouth and presses a kiss to the knuckles. “One second, okay?”

He’s hardly gone any time at all. Duke spends all of it counting his breaths, walking himself back down from the edge of something that aches all the way through him. When the bed dips beside him, he finds Nathan wearing a loose-fitting shirt and holding a rag in his hands.

Nathan smiles down at him. “Hey,” he murmurs, stupid and fond in a way that makes Duke’s chest feel tight.

“Hey,” Duke echoes.

The washcloth is warm and damp when Nathan runs it up Duke’s stomach. Grounding. Something to focus on. He’s damnably gentle when he nudges Duke’s knees open and runs it along the inside of his thighs.

Duke watches in an awed, cowed quiet. “Thanks,” he murmurs when Nathan’s done.

Nathan cards his fingers through Duke’s hair and it’s all he can do not to tip into that point of contact. “You okay?” He asks.

What a question.

“Yeah,” Duke lies.

Nathan catches his chin, gentle when he turns Duke to look at him.

“Duke,” he says, soft and stern and worried.

Duke almost—almost—chokes up all over again. He props himself up on his elbow so he can tip forward into a kiss. If Nathan recognizes it for the distraction it is, he allows it.

“It was good,” Duke promises, and that isn’t a lie. He tucks a hand underneath the hemline of Nathan’s shirt to rest his fingers against warm skin. “Better than good.”

Nathan cocks an eyebrow at him. “But?”

Dropping onto his back with a weak attempt at a laugh, Duke relents, “But—I’ve had a very weird week.”

Nathan frowns in that way Duke can’t help but adore. He wants to lay his thumb between Nathan’s brows and press the crease smooth. He flops down beside Duke. “You didn’t say anything about weird.”

“It’s nothing,” Duke says. “Just,” he waves a hand, “pondering my place in the universe or whatever.” Turning onto his side, he casts Nathan a smile. “Y’know. The usual.”

Nathan chuckles and bumps him with his knee. “If you have any grand revelations, let me know.”

Staring up at the ceiling, Duke wonders if any of the shit he’s been through in the last few days qualifies as ‘grand’.

It sure isn’t the word he’d use.

* * *

**DWIGHT**

Gloria hits the station like a hurricane, first thing in the morning. She’s already there when Dwight swings through to pick up Audrey and Nathan and take them to the Floreses. Judging by the noise, she’s not any happier about spending her morning at the station than he is.

“Well, I’m gonna need you to put it in words I _do_ understand, cheekbones,” she drawls, heated and caustic. “Spell it out for an old lady.”

“I didn’t mean—” Nathan sputters, wide-eyed when he spots Dwight from over Gloria’s shoulder. “Thank god. Dwight, can you help me out here?”

At Dwight’s name, Gloria whirls to face him. “Oh, you’re in _big_ trouble, you overgrown boy scout.” She looks around between them. “Who, exactly, was gonna tell me that Duke got bodysnatched?”

Nathan, the patience in his voice beginning to fray around the edges, starts in with a careful, “He wasn’t bodysnatched, he—”

“Wasn’t bodysnatched my ass,” she counters. “That Stepford Wife is _not_ Duke Crocker.”

“He got hit with a trouble,” Dwight offers as he steps further into the room.

It was, apparently, the wrong thing to say. She turns an exasperated look on him, throwing her hands in the air. “Of course, he got hit with a trouble. I’m old, I’m not a moron. Jesus Christ, what is the matter with you people? ‘ _Got hit with a trouble_ ,’ yeah, no shit.”

In retrospect, Dwight does feel guilty for keeping the news from Gloria. It wasn’t intentional. But he knows her and Duke well enough to know that she should have been one of the first people they called and he kicks himself for letting it slip by the wayside.

“It was a wish-granting trouble,” Dwight elaborates. “We’re still figuring out the details.”

Gloria’s face falls. “Oh shit,” she drawls, “Not the Floreses.”

Nathan’s weary embarrassment evaporates in favor of disbelief. “Hang on,” he interjects, “You know about the Flores trouble?”

Gloria rediscovers her anger in a flash. “Yeah, I do,” she says, whirling on him. “Now, imagine how helpful I could have been if you’d made a five-minute phone call, bees for brains.”

With a huff and a ruffle of her shoulders, she sets aside her frustration long enough to explain, “I’ve known the Floreses since Emilia’s mother was in diapers. And I’ve seen that trouble before. It ain’t pretty, that’s for sure.” Steering back into anger, she barks, “And you numbskulls have been wasting time we don’t have by keeping me in the dark!”

Dwight steps forward, reaching out to lay a hand on her shoulder. “We’re all scared for him, Gloria,” he says, gentle as he can.

She sucks in a sharp breath, her voice gone suddenly tight. Brows knit into a stubborn frown, she grumbles, “Oh, don’t you pull that conflict diffusing bullshit with me.” She waves a hand before dabbing at her eyes with the back of her wrist. “Just let me be angry, would you?”

Dwight offers her a smile, lightly teasing when he reminds her, “Let you? You’re gonna be angry at me no matter what.”

She swats lightly at him. “Damn right I am,” she says, but it’s closer to fond than irritated.

Blowing out a wavery breath, Gloria composes herself before she sighs, “Alright. The Floreses aren’t gonna let you lot past their front gate. I’m coming with you.”

“How much do you know about the Flores trouble?” Audrey asks.

“Enough to know that we got stuck with the knockoff.”

“Don’t call him that,” Nathan snaps.

It earns him a look that’s dangerously close to pitying. Gloria watches Nathan with an expression too _knowing_. It’s enough to make _Dwight_ feel transparent, and he’s not the one she’s looking at.

“Oh, kid,” she drawls, shaking her head. But she doesn’t push the topic any further than that. Tucking her purse tighter against her side as if to fortify herself, she says, “Look, I’m an old family friend. If anybody can convince them to let you knuckleheads in, it’s me. I’m going.”

Audrey and Nathan both cast Dwight a look and he holds up his hands in surrender. “What, like _I’m_ gonna argue with her?”

She cruises past him on her way to the door, patting his arm as she swings by. “You’re driving,” she informs him.

Dwight, Audrey, and Nathan all exchange a wordless look before following her down the hallway.

* * *

**GLORIA**

In a town full of a never-ending list of shit to worry about, Gloria never felt all too worried about the Floreses. They were under no illusions about their trouble or the consequences of it. They locked themselves up nice and tight for a year or two every time the troubles rolled around and that was that. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it did the trick.

They were good people who’d been dealt a bad hand just doing their best to cope with it. She respected that.

How Duke wound up in the crosshairs of their trouble, she can’t even begin to guess. But knowing him, he wished for something big and stupid and idyllic. Head in the clouds, that kid. She always hoped that dreamer spirit of his meant he was headed for better things.

This isn’t what she had in mind.

As Dwight pulls into the Floreses’ driveway, Audrey unclicks her seatbelt and leans forward between Dwight and Gloria’s shoulders to ask, “You said you’d seen their trouble before, right?”

Gloria puffs a sigh, casting Audrey a sideways glance. “Once,” she says. “Didn’t know him too well. Owned a convenience store other side of town. He got strange, though. Sorta—empty behind the eyes, you know? Nice enough. But weird. Floreses started paying people to pick up groceries for them, after that.”

“What happened to him?” Audrey asks.

Gloria pauses to consider it. She never kept up with him. He creeped her out, if she’s honest. After he got whammied, she gave his shop a wide berth. “I don’t know,” she admits. “He ran the store like that for a while. I don’t think he lives in town, anymore.”

“That’s a shame,” Nathan drawls, slouched in his seat and staring out the window at the Flores house. “Could’ve been a lead.”

“Still might be,” Dwight offers in that damnably helpful way of his. “We can look him up, see if anybody knows what happened to him.”

“Yeah, well, daylight’s a-wastin’,” she grumbles as she lets herself out of the car.

She doesn’t wait for the others to get their asses in gear, just marches herself up to the front door and rings the bell. When no one answers, she rings it again. She’s on the third buzz when the others catch up and join her on the porch. After a brief shuffle from inside, the door opens hardly more than an inch. Through the crack, she can see Vivian Flores staring back at her.

“Gloria?” Vivian asks in surprise. “You know you can’t be here.”

Gloria shrugs, unbothered. “Since when have I ever done what I was supposed to?”

Vivian catches sight of the others, behind her, and the badges on their hips. “They’re here about what happened with Emilia, right?”

Gloria nods.

Keeping the door as a barrier between them, Vivian stumbles through a tight and uncomfortable attempt at sincerity when she says, “Listen, I’m—I’m so sorry about what happened to your friend. We’ve spoken to Emilia about it and I can assure you she _won’t_ be sneaking out again. But it’s safer for everyone if you just go before it happens again. I’m sorry.”

“Ma’am.” Audrey steps forward.

She moves as if to wedge her foot in the gap in the door, but Gloria shoos her back with a terse, “Don’t be rude,” and she settles for hovering on Gloria’s left.

“We know how the trouble works,” Audrey assures Vivian, “And we know what not to say. You have my word we’ll be careful. We just need to ask you a couple questions and then we’re out of your hair.”

Vivian stands frozen, her grip tight around the doorknob as she glances between the four of them.

“Please,” Audrey urges, so cracked open and hopeful it rattles even Gloria’s old bones.

After a pause, Vivian steps aside and swings the door open. “Ten minutes.” She says. “We don’t do this.”

They start to move forward, but Vivian holds out her arm to bar their way before anyone can cross the threshold. “I’m not letting all four of you in.”

“I’ll wait in the car,” Dwight volunteers.

Vivian hesitates and Gloria heaves a sigh. She gestures a thumb backwards at Nathan and Audrey. “Listen, you’re not gonna get Tweedledee and Tweedledum here apart. They’re a matching set. Might as well let us in.”

Vivian looks skeptical. “I don’t know.”

“Viv,” Gloria urges, reaching out to squeeze Vivian’s elbow. “You know _I’m_ not gonna say it. And I’ll clobber either one of them if they so much as _think_ it, deal? You got my word.”

Vivian finally steps to one side. “Alright,” she relents, “but make it quick.”

“We will, thank you Mrs. Flores,” Audrey promises.

Vivian doesn’t relax—far from it, really, but she allows them past even if she watches all three of them like she’s expecting to be robbed. Gloria knows better than to take it personally. Audrey and Nathan, on the other hand, look distinctly uncomfortable even if they’re trying not to show it.

The Flores home is beautiful as Gloria remembers: dark wood floors and furniture, glass paned cabinets full of dishes and knickknacks and heirlooms, yellow curtains and soft rugs. It’s been years since she stepped inside, but the Flores house always feels fuller and more alive every time she crosses its threshold.

They’ve barely been in the house fifteen seconds before Andrea appears from upstairs. She rushes down the stairs and throws her arms around Gloria with a surprised laugh. “Gloria!” She exclaims, somewhere between chiding and delighted. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”

“That’s what they keep telling me.” She pats Andrea’s back before asking Vivian, “How’s your old lady doing, Viv?”

Vivian puffs a tense laugh. “You’re one to talk,” she jokes dryly, and it startles Gloria into a chuckle of her own.

“She’s good,” Vivian says, “She’s upstairs, actually. I’d say she’ll be happy you stopped by, but…”

Gloria grins, waving a hand. “But she’s gonna have my head on a platter for showing up during the troubles.”

Finally, Vivian cracks a real smile. “Something like that. She’s resting, but I’ll tell her you’re here.”

“First things first,” Nathan cuts in. “We need to ask you a few questions.”

Everyone gathers in the living room. Vivian and her wife settle together on the plush, wine colored loveseat. Gloria takes her usual spot in the matching recliner across from it while Audrey and Nathan both take the couch—the two of them sat too far forward in their seats, looking distinctly awkward.

From her place in the recliner, Gloria can just barely see the shape of Emilia lingering at the top of the stairs—like a child listening in on her parents after she’s supposed to be in bed. Gloria offers her a sideways smile and a nod and Emilia scuttles a few steps higher until she’s out of Gloria’s sight. (Not, Gloria’s sure, gone entirely, merely out of view. She’s a troublemaker just like her mother and grandmother before her. Gloria likes that about her.)

Audrey doesn’t beat around the bush. “How old were you the last time the troubles hit, Mrs. Flores?”

Vivian casts Andrea a sideways glance, her shoulders stiff. Andrea lays a hand on her knee and keeps it there, and it seems to ground Vivian enough to push forward.

“I was a teenager. Um. Sixteen, I think. I was in high school.”

Poor kid. Gloria knows what’s coming. She realizes too late that she should have explained as much before they got in the house.

“And the Flores trouble,” Audrey prompts, “Someone used it, back then. Someone set it off.”

Vivian stares down at her lap. “It was me.” She clears her throat. Always a tough one, she doesn’t linger in it. “We used to do our own shopping, during the troubles. It was the only time any of us ever left the house.”

“What do you know about the—the doppelgangers?” Nathan asks, stumbling in his hunt for the right word. “The replacements.”

“We call them temporaries,” Vivian offers. She sighs. “I’m sorry, I probably don’t know as much as you think I do. We’re careful. Have been for generations.” She shakes her head. “Honestly, I’m not sure how much of it’s true and how much is just… story.”

“Anything helps,” Audrey promises. She piggybacks off of Nathan’s question with a thoughtful, “Emilia said that the wish was a place. But if things are different there, why doesn’t Duke—I mean, the—the _new_ Duke—how come he doesn’t notice?”

Vivian picks at her nails as she considers her words. “It’s hard to explain,” she says. “They’re sort of suggestable. They fill in the gaps. Like—Mr. Pelletier, the man that I—” She trails off, avoiding saying the words directly. It hurts Gloria’s heart that she still carries so much guilt all these years later; she was just a kid.

“He was strange at first, but he got more normal the longer he was around.” Vivian glances between them. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s almost like… like the world they’re seeing is just a little bit different to what’s actually happening to them. You know?”

“Like whatever you say just rolls right off,” Audrey offers, like she knows exactly what Vivian’s talking about.

Nathan leans back with his arms crossed, brow furrowed into a frown. “Is it dangerous to correct them?” He asks.

Vivian seems startled by the question. “What do you mean?”

Focused and serious, he elaborates, “Like—if we point out the differences, tell him he’s wrong, he’s not gonna like—go berserk, is he?”

“I’ve never heard of one getting violent,” Vivian says. “Honestly, they’re usually pretty—easy going, I guess? If you set a boundary they’ll just readjust.”

“Ah,” Audrey hums, looking at Nathan over her shoulder. “Exactly what you and Duke are best at: setting boundaries.”

He doesn’t move, only going so far as to cast her a sideways glance. “Glass houses,” he reminds her tersely.

“You’re both idiots,” Gloria grouses and they at least have the good sense to look cowed. Neither one of them seems to want to ask the hard question, so she resigns herself to it. “Alright, but what _are_ they?”

For all her grit and vinegar, there’s a real thread of concern bundled up underneath it all. “The copies. Are they—well, are they _people_?”

Audrey whirls to look at her. “Of course, they’re people,” she argues. “They have memories and—and feelings and—” She trails off, looking back and forth between Gloria and Vivian and slowly losing momentum. “They’re people.” She insists softly, although it comes out sounding more like a question. “Right?”

Vivian stares down at her lap.

“They don’t survive,” she says, voice muted.

Nathan goes still. “What?”

Vivian casts him a regretful look. “When the troubles end, they—wither. I’m sorry.”

For a moment, the silence in the room feels so oppressive and complete, Gloria isn’t certain any of them are so much as breathing. Nathan and Audrey share a meaningful and utterly incomprehensible expression. Gloria doesn’t bother trying to riddle it out. She got the important part: there’s a deadline to this little rescue party.

Andrea speaks up when no one else will, her voice steady and kind. “There’s a reason we take this as seriously as we do. Nobody understands the consequences of this trouble better than Viv does.”

Vivian reaches for her hand and Andrea laces their fingers together.

The two of them were friends (maybe more than friends, but that wasn’t Gloria’s or anyone else’s business) back when Vivian’s trouble first went off. Andrea might not be a Flores by blood, but she’s seen more of this family and this trouble than anyone outside of it. She’s always been good for Vivian. Kept her sane, kept her grounded, was able to reach her when her mother couldn’t. Gloria’s glad they have each other.

Neither Nathan or Audrey move, and Gloria has a feeling that they’ve reached the end of their list of questions. Gloria gets to her feet and Vivian and Andrea stand automatically to meet her. She pulls Vivian into a tight hug and says, “Thanks for breaking the rules for us, kid.”

Vivian huffs a little laugh. “Mom always said you were a bad influence.”

Gloria pulls back and winks at her. “And don’t you forget it.”

They say their goodbyes and their thank yous. Audrey has the sense to take down a contact number in case they have more questions and then they shuffle out the door in an awkward hush. Gloria doesn’t pretend to know what’s going on in Nathan and Audrey’s heads. They’re their own worst enemies, those two.

Gloria fills Dwight in while Audrey and Nathan speak quietly a few yards from the car.

No one talks on the ride back.

* * *

**NATHAN**

Nathan feels a hundred years older walking through his front door than he was when he walked out of it, this morning. The weight of what they learned at the Floreses sits heavy on his shoulders.

If they don’t save Duke before the Hunter, Nathan loses Duke and Audrey both.

He feels sick.

Audrey was the one who told him he ought to try and talk to Duke without her. But he doesn’t want to do anything without her, right now. Every second without her ticks them closer to the Hunter—wasted moments he could be using to save her or spend with her (or say goodbye to her). But she knows the troubles better than anyone, and when she says she thinks it would help, he listens. He owes her that much.

Duke’s in the shower when he gets home, so he busies himself with something rote and mindless: changes out of his work clothes, sorts the mail, sits heavily at the foot of his bed and watches his own thoughts scroll along the inside of his skull.

Duke steps out of the bathroom wearing dark sweatpants and a well-worn shirt, his hair damp and loose around his shoulders. Nathan doesn’t mean to stare. He’s trying to reconcile the picture in front of him with the reality behind it: that no matter how beautiful or familiar, this Duke is a fantasy with an expiration date.

Duke meets his unfocused expression with a low chuckle and a shake of his head. “Long day at work, huh?” He ruffles Nathan’s hair on his way past. “You seen my electric razor? It’s not where I put it.”

“I keep one under the sink,” Nathan answers automatically.

Rolling his eyes in a distinctly put-upon way, Duke pivots back towards the bathroom. “Yours is cheap,” he complains with a crook of a smile. “But fine. It’ll do in a pinch.”

Duke disappears into the bathroom, but he leaves the door open. Nathan watches his back as Duke wipes a circle of steam from the mirror and sets to trimming his beard.

Apropos of nothing, Duke comments, “Hey, it’s the second Thursday of the month.”

Nathan struggles to connect the dots. “Yeah?”

Switching the razor off, Duke turns over his shoulder to look at him. “So, you’ve been at work all day. Did you take your T shot?”

Nathan feels suddenly exposed in a way he doesn’t know the words for. He tries to cover for it, keeping his voice as level as he can when he says, “Must have slipped my mind,” and levers himself—a little unsteadily—to his feet.

He fits in beside Duke at the sink. Despite Nathan’s unfamiliarity with having Duke in his space, navigating around him has become shockingly—normal. He leans past Duke as he opens the medicine cabinet and gathers what he needs.

He usually does his dose sitting on the edge of the tub, but it feels suddenly too crowded, too bright, too exposed. He retreats instead back to the foot of the bed, laying out his supplies beside him. Years ago—years and years ago—doing this was terrifying and exhilarating and empowering. After that, it became almost meditative: a familiar, habitual few minutes out of his day that grounded him. More recently—specifically, since his trouble kicked in—it’s become something he hardly thinks about. He can’t feel the needle. He’s been doing it for years. It’s nothing.

So why is today different?

His hands shake. He watches them tremble and doesn’t understand it. Pushing forward, he disinfects a patch on his thigh. He tries to keep his thoughts focused on the task and only the task. Clean the area. Draw back to the dose. Wait for the syringe to fill. His hands don’t steady, but it’s fine. Whatever it is, it’s fine.

He moves quick. The needle feels like nothing, just like everything else. But when he pulls back to check he hasn’t hit a vein, blood pinks the yellow contents of the syringe.

“Shit,” he curses, withdrawing the needle and struggling to cap it due to the unsubstantiated tremor in his hands.

He never noticed Duke coming back into the room, but before he can go and fumble the cap entirely, another pair of hands closes gently around his own.

“Hey,” Duke says, his voice easy and calm. Nathan’s knee jerk reaction wants accuse his tone of being patronizing, but it isn’t. Not really. It’s—soft. Soothing, almost.

“ _Really_ long day, huh?” Duke eases the syringe from his grip and clicks the cap into place. “Let me help.”

Nathan startles from the spell that settled over him. He stumbles over his words just a little when he asks, “Do you know how?”

Duke rolls his eyes. “Come on. I know it’s been a few years but give a guy a little credit, Nathan.”

He turns to get a new needle, leaving Nathan to his quiet shock. Nathan hasn’t quite recovered by the time Duke returns, but if Duke notices the dumbstruck look on his face, he makes no comment on it. He kneels down on the floor in front of him, looking focused and relaxed in a way Nathan admires as much as he envies.

Nathan watches him disinfect a spot on the other thigh. Watches him pull the dose in a way that’s practiced and confident. His heart does something funny in his chest—gets tangled up. Duke glances up at him when the dose is ready. He holds Nathan’s thigh in his free hand—strokes it with his thumb—and Nathan finds himself overwhelmed by the strangeness of Duke’s uncomplicated attention, his easy smile. He feels like a teenager again, caught in a love that hadn’t yet gone sour.

“Ready?” Duke asks.

Nathan nods, swallowing around the sudden tightness in his throat.

“I’ll make it quick,” Duke promises. And he does. It’s easy and over. Duke caps the needle and bandages the injection site in a smooth motion. Nathan stares at the band-aid on his leg because it’s better—safer—than staring at the look-alike Duke sitting in front of him.

“Did it hurt?” Duke asks.

Shaking his head, Nathan murmurs, “Didn’t hurt,” his voice low and tight.

Duke smiles softly up at him. He runs his thumb across the top of the bandage. Nathan wants to feel it—the latent sting of the needle, the weight of Duke’s touch, the heat of his palm—more than he can remember ever wanting anything.

“Yeah, yeah, tough guy,” Duke chides, rolling his eyes. “I’ll do better next time.”

Nathan’s spared the agony of having to look him in the eyes when Duke gathers the trash and half-empty bottle of testosterone and clears it away for him.

(Nathan’s transition was Haven’s best kept secret that everyone knew—something simultaneously entirely private and damnably public. The troubles made Haven a strange petri dish to grow up in. It certainly wasn’t exempt from the kind of small-town bigotry that populated most of rural Maine. But the troubles were, are—and maybe always will be—king. In the end, everyone always wound up more preoccupied with the gossip around his trouble than the gossip around his genitals.

Once he was old enough—man enough—folks seemed inclined to a purposeful forgetfulness. That suited Nathan just fine.)

Shy and suddenly uncertain in a way he’s never felt before, Nathan stares down at the floor and murmurs, “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, that’s what you said the first time, too.”

Nathan remembers the first time. He was alone—twenty-two and terrified in the bathroom of his first apartment. He remembers being more afraid than he had any reason to be. Excited, too, but in an anxious, unfocused way that got tangled up in the fear and escalated it. He remembers sitting on the edge of the tub for ages, staring at the uncapped needle in his hand and trying to _will_ himself to do it.

And then he imagines how different it might have been if Duke were there.

No one’s ever been there for his dose. It was always a private ritual. Hell, it isn’t even that miraculous of a thing, all these years later: routine as brushing his teeth. But it had been miraculous, once.

Somewhere, in a place where only wishes can be, their lives didn’t dovetail like some Shakespearian tragedy and—that first time—Duke was there.

They missed so much, the two of them—separated first by distance and then by something much worse than distance.

When Duke returns from the bathroom, he settles right back onto the floor between Nathan’s knees. He grins impishly up at Nathan, running his hands up the outside of his thighs. “Want me to kiss it better?”

Nathan’s breath catches. Duke dips to press a kiss just above the bend of Nathan’s knee. His fingers press visibly into his thighs. Nathan can hear his heartbeat in his ears. He _wants_ in a way that’s ugly and unfair and impossible.

He shuffles back from the edge of the bed, away from Duke’s wandering hands.

“We aren’t like this,” Nathan blurts. The words tumble from his mouth in a disorganized rush.

Duke blinks up at him in confused surprise. “Uh, what?”

“Sorry,” Nathan corrects, shaking his head. “Shit. Sorry. I know that doesn’t make any sense to you.” He drags his hands over his face. “But we aren’t—this isn’t what you want.”

Duke—No. Not Duke. Nathan can’t afford to let himself forget that—cocks his head and grins. “What, you breaking up with me?” He asks, his tone light and teasing. The severity of the conversation glances off of him.

This should be easy. He’s fought with Duke a thousand times. Hurting the copy’s—the temporary, Vivian had called it—feelings shouldn’t matter. It isn’t Duke. It isn’t even a person. It’s a trouble wearing a familiar face, and it’s going to disappear when Audrey does if they don’t do something.

“We aren’t together,” Nathan says with stubborn, measured precision: the words yanked from his mouth like teeth.

The easy smile slides off Duke’s face.

Nathan keeps going, because he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he stops. “We haven’t been since we were kids.” He remains as gentle as he knows how to be, which isn’t nearly gentle enough for something like this—if there is such a thing.

Duke offers something too tight and cautious to really call a laugh. “What are you saying, Nate?” He asks.

“It’s a trouble,” Nathan says.

Duke makes a face. “You don’t believe in the troubles,” he counters, but there’s no confidence behind the assertion. His voice sounds hollow and soft. It’s all wrong. The Duke he knows would fight for them.

The realization makes him dizzy.

But he’s right. He knows it.

The fake takes the news in a soft, unfocused sort of way. The real Duke wouldn’t have.

There’s a clarity in that, even if there’s a gentle agony to it, too.

“I didn’t want to,” Nathan admits. “But I am troubled. The real Duke would know that.”

Duke looks at him, wearing a helpless expression that only grows more vacant the longer it sits on his face.

“I am the real Duke,” he murmurs. It seems perfunctory, like a preprogrammed response. He’s so far removed, in this moment, from the man Nathan knew that Nathan can’t be sure as to whether or not he’s hurting him. He doesn’t recognize the signs.

Something disturbingly close to panic rattles against his ribs.

“I have to get him back,” Nathan urges; his voice goes dangerously fragile underneath him. “I don’t know if you can help me with that, but I’m out of ideas.”

“I didn’t go anywhere,” Duke says, but it’s more confused than argumentative.

The rush of adrenaline that catapulted Nathan forward into panic levels out into a resigned, nauseous dread. He drops his head into his hands, more so that he doesn’t have to look Duke in the eye than anything else.

“You did,” Nathan sighs. “Almost fifteen years ago. You left. I never—never forgave you for it.”

Nathan doesn’t know whether to call it irony or straight up cruelty that it’s so much easier to be honest to the fake Duke than the real one.

Easier to be honest and harder to hurt him. Jesus. In the back of his head, years and years of fights play like a highlight reel—all the times he leaned into petty fury because it was simpler than the tangle of heartbreak underneath.

The fake Duke stares up at him, seated on the floor at his feet like some kind of disciple. It reminds Nathan too much of the paintings that line the walls of the church. But—even knowing he wouldn’t be able to feel the point of contact—he can’t bring himself to take Duke’s hand and help him to his feet.

They sit like that, in miserable silence, for less time than it feels.

“Where did I go? When I left?” Duke asks.

It occurs to Nathan that he doesn’t have an answer to that. Not really. Not specifics. Duke was _away_ , he was _gone_ , he _left_. He carved himself out an ugly life surrounded by beautiful vistas, and Nathan didn’t want a part of it. (He didn’t. He didn’t, he didn’t, he didn’t.)

“All over the world,” Nathan answers vaguely, and the fake nods—staring down at his lap like he’s absorbing the information. Adapting to it.

“Okay,” he agrees. “I left.”

The unnatural, unDuke-like cadence of it makes Nathan’s skin crawl.

He scuttles backwards, clamoring to his feet, desperate to put space between them. “Don’t _do_ that,” he snaps. Fear and anger feel the same, in that moment.

Duke stays on the floor. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize!” He barks, but Duke’s expression only goes more distant.

“Okay.”

Nathan wonders how any of them could have ever mistaken the copy for the real thing. Under the slightest scrutiny, he’s suddenly so much _less_.

“Duke,” and it’s strange, now, calling the double by Duke’s name. But there’s nothing else to call him. There’s no one else for him to be. “You’re a trouble. I know how that sounds. And it’s—it’s messed up. I get it. But you’re not… you. And the real you is somewhere else. And we can’t get to him. And if we don’t get him back soon, he’ll be gone. And so will you.”

For a moment, Duke resurfaces. He tilts his head with a disbelieving, placating grin and jokes, “You get how crazy that sounds, right?” And for a moment he sounds so much like himself, it shifts something huge and heavy in Nathan’s chest.

But it’s a passing resemblance. A line from a script. A blank slate parroting Duke back at him.

“Yeah. I know,” Nathan agrees. Exhaustion creeps into his bones and lines up behind all the other feelings he lacks the bandwidth to look at directly. “But that other place, it’s where you’re from. And I’m hoping maybe you know something. Underneath—” Nathan waves a hand. “I don’t know. The—brainwashing.”

“What other place?” Duke pushes. “I’ve lived in Haven my whole life.”

Nathan can’t imagine that world. Much as he hated Duke for leaving, in a way it always made sense for him to go. Nathan never quite made up his mind about which of them he was angrier at: Duke for disappearing or himself for refusing to go with him.

“I’m sorry,” Nathan mumbles. He steps backwards, towards the door. “I just need a minute. Don’t—don’t go anywhere, okay?”

Duke just nods. He looks dazed and disconnected like some kind of sci-fi android cut off from its hivemind. It’s eerie. It’s wrong.

Nathan steps outside and breathes and breathes and breathes and calls Audrey. He tries to pretend his hands aren’t shaking.

Audrey answers halfway through the first ring.

“Did he say anything?” She asks, damnably hopeful in a way Nathan hates to ruin.

He scuffs his shoes through the gravel by the porch, satisfied by the crunching sound. “It’s not working.”

Audrey hesitates, long enough that he nearly repeats himself to make sure she heard him at all. When she does, it’s to ask, “Are you okay?”

The question throws him off more than he’d like to admit. “I’m fine,” he rushes to say—too fast. He amends it with a more level, “You’re better at this than me. You should talk to him.”

“He doesn’t even know me,” Audrey says. Even over the phone, the hurt in her voice is undeniable.

Nathan shakes his head, digging his heel deeper into the gravel until he hits the soft, soundless give of dirt.

“He does,” Nathan urges. “He’s Duke, so he does. Somewhere.”

Audrey huffs a muffled laugh. “Wow, never thought I’d accuse _you_ of being an optimist.”

Nathan doesn’t bend to the joke. “He couldn’t forget you. He wouldn’t.” _I wouldn’t_. He doesn’t say that part. In a lifetime of doing things alone and calling it a choice, he finds that he’d give anything, in this moment, not to be.

The line goes quiet for a few seconds until finally she concedes. “Give me twenty minutes.”

* * *

**AUDREY**

“Did you break him?” Audrey asks, shaken by the bizarre, absent look on Duke’s face. “He looks drugged.”

“I’m not drugged,” Duke mumbles back, although he struggles to make eye contact with her. “And I can hear you.”

If the circumstances were different, it might be funny. As it is, it just makes her a little seasick.

“Sorry, Duke,” she says.

“Yeah.” He stares down at his hands. Audrey casts a look at Nathan who only shakes his head, looking as helpless as she feels.

She kneels down in front of Duke, laying a hand on his knee without thinking. He stares at the point of contact but doesn’t flinch from it. She takes that as a good sign, even if it isn’t one.

“Nathan told you about the trouble,” she prompts—less of a question than a jumping off point.

Duke nods. “Nathan said a lot of things,” he murmurs, and Audrey wonders if she imagines the sudden and sharp intake of breath from behind her. Refusing to let herself be distracted, she squeezes Duke’s knee.

“Believe it or not, I’ve got a pretty good idea how you’re feeling right now.” She offers a feeble attempt at a smile and a joke when she says, “The real Audrey Parker? She’s a brunette.”

“Wouldn’t be a bad look on you,” Duke comments, a little perfunctory, like he’s just talking to talk.

He’s so close to himself. It aches to look at him.

Audrey sighs. She isn’t as good at this as everyone wants her to be. Words feel clumsy. She isn’t equipped to offer Duke the comfort he needs or deserves and even if she was, they’re running out of time. She tries. Because it’s her job. Because it’s her calling.

Because it _is_ Duke just as much as it _isn’t_.

“I know this is confusing,” she says, “But the Haven you remember isn’t real.” She runs her thumb in circles along his knee and he sits still as stone.

Duke glances up at Nathan, behind her. “He said I wasn’t real.” Turning his gaze on her, there’s something frantic and heartbroken in his expression. It reminds her of the way Audrey—the real Audrey Parker—had looked at her after she lost her memories. It cuts through the core of her with a knife.

Voice soft and a little shattered, Duke mumbles, “Fifteen years together and now I’m not real?” He shakes his head. “I was gonna—I was gonna propose. But I can’t—I can’t find—” That vacant expression starts back in. His voice gives out to nearly nothing when he admits, “I can’t find the ring. I swore I put it—” He trails off, staring at his feet.

Audrey doesn’t dare look over her shoulder at Nathan. She doesn’t trust either one of them to be able to keep it together if she does.

“I know this is a lot to take in,” Audrey says, pushing forward even though it feels crass and unkind to bulldoze over a confession like that. But Duke looks distant and half-focused and she’s never had much aptitude for tact. “But there’s another—version of you. Out there, living the life you came from. And if we don’t get him back soon, you’ll disappear too.”

She uses the word _disappear_ on purpose. The way the Floreses worded it, she thinks the reality might be much uglier.

She reaches up to squeeze his arm and try to draw his attention back to her. “We’re hoping that maybe you’re connected to him. Maybe you can—talk to him. Or help us find him or—I don’t know. Something.”

Duke stares down at his hands in his lap. His voice barely lifts above a whisper when he asks, “What happens to me?”

Audrey’s heart gets stuck in her throat. She has two options: the uneasy truth or the kind lie. It doesn’t feel like a kindness, though. It feels selfish and cruel when she hears herself promise, “You’ll go back to the life you came from,” with no way of knowing whether there’s any certainty to that.

She takes one of his hands in hers. He has soft hands—not the strong and calloused fingers of a sailor.

“Do you feel—connected to him at all? Or to where you came from?” Audrey urges.

Duke looks small. Hunched over, curled around himself, eyes wide and lost, he’s more fragile than she’s ever seen him—more fragile than he’s ever allowed himself to be seen.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, glancing helplessly back and forth between them. “This doesn’t make sense.”

Audrey finds herself struck with the heavy and dizzying reality that they’re careening towards yet another dead end.

Nathan hasn’t given up yet. He paces restlessly behind her, grasping at straws when he says, “He made the wish because of the fishing trip.”

Audrey hates the frustrated hope in his voice and how she feels it echo through her own chest.

“He felt guilty,” Nathan continues. “But—it wasn’t his fault. What happened, my trouble—it wasn’t his fault.” He stops his pacing, kneeling down beside her to look Duke in the eyes when he urges, “Duke, it wasn’t your fault.”

Duke stares back at him, wide and empty. After a silence that feels impossible and unending, Duke whispers, “I don’t understand.”

Nathan breaks. It’s a quiet, unremarkable thing.

“Yeah,” he sighs, shuffling back to his feet. “I know.”

Audrey aches for him. For Duke. For herself. For the future that keeps slipping through their fingers like smoke. In that room, in the yellow incandescent light, they are three separate hurts unable to reach one another.

Eventually, they run out of questions. The temporary only grows blanker and emptier, retreating inside of himself as his world becomes more and more complex. Like this, the cracks in the veneer become agonizingly apparent. For all that he looks like the man they love, talks like him, laughs like him—ultimately, he’s an empty vessel with a familiar coat of paint. He can mimic Duke, but he can’t think like him or adapt like him. When they excuse themselves to step outside and talk, he doesn’t get up from the floor—only stares wordlessly at the far wall, looking a thousand miles away.

Standing in Nathan’s driveway in the dim glow of the streetlamp, Audrey feels precariously close to tears. She swallows the lump in her throat and blinks until her vision clears. Only the smallest strain is audible in her voice when she turns to him and asks for the second time tonight, “Are you okay?”

Nathan doesn’t move. He stares into the dark, looking but not seeing. “I’m fine,” he promises, rote and perfunctory. She doesn’t believe him.

“We’re gonna get him back,” she says, although it’s a tossup just who she’s trying to convince. “We’ve figured out worse troubles than this.”

Nathan doesn’t quite hear her. Caught in his own train of thought, he aims for light and teasing when he jokes a little too suddenly, “He said he was gonna _propose_.” He makes a sound she thinks is supposed to be a laugh. “Can you imagine being married to Duke Crocker? Jesus.”

He blinks too hard, too fast. His eyes look glassy in the low, yellow light.

“Yeah,” Audrey agrees with a forced laugh.

She wraps her arms around herself, even though the night feels balmy and warm. She rocks on the balls of her feet and tries to vent the anxious energy that’s got her lit up like a downed powerline. It feels dangerous and too alive inside of her—all sparks.

Shifting focus, she says, “I’m gonna talk to the Teagues in the morning. See if they have any records of the Flores trouble at the Herald.”

Nathan nods. “I’ll get with the Guard, see if they missed anything.”

Audrey looks up at him, aware of how close they’re standing. It might be a trick of the light, but he looks exhausted. He looks the same kind of heartbroken she’s pretending not to feel. She doesn’t want to keep him at arm’s length anymore.

When she tips up to kiss him, he meets her halfway—even if he makes a shocked and startled sound against her lips. Even if it takes a moment for his hands to finally settle on her waist. Even if he kisses slow and chaste like too much touch might burn him up from the inside out. They linger there in that ghost of a kiss, too shaken to push forward and too broken to pull away.

Finally, Audrey settles back flat on her feet and the moment melts like spun sugar. He watches her with an expression that breaks her heart.

“What about—” He babbles, voice soft, “I mean, we—Duke—”

“Yes,” Audrey agrees. Her chest feels full of knots, each one more tangled and tight than the last. “Duke. But us, too.”

Not for the first time, it occurs to her that she might be setting them up to fail—that maybe there really is no stopping the Hunter, no saving herself, and that she’s only hurting everyone all the more by dangling the possibility of a happy ending where there is none.

But she can’t live like that. She won’t.

She sighs, putting distance between them with a hand at the center of his chest. “I know he’s not Duke,” she glances back in the direction of the front door. “And maybe he’s not even—alive, I guess. But he’s something. He’s confused. And he shouldn’t be alone right now.”

“What about us?” Nathan asks, his voice low and almost fragile. Cautious, maybe. She holds too much of his heart in her hands and she knows it. All she can do is promise to be gentle.

“We should talk,” she says. “I want to. I promise. Just not tonight. Today was—a lot.”

Nathan stutters just a little when he asks, “Good talk or bad talk?”

As hard as today has been—as awful—he looks at her like that and she can’t stop the smile that flits across her face. She shoves his shoulder gently. “People usually kiss you before a bad talk?”

Nathan matches her grin with one of his own. He offers a one shouldered shrug. “Depends on the talk.”

Audrey has to leave, or she’ll stand here in his driveway all night. “Goodnight, Nathan. Take care of him, okay?”

He catches her wrist when she turns towards her car, stopping her in her tracks.

“Parker, I—” The words, whatever they are, get caught in his throat. She has a feeling she knows, anyway. She squeezes his fingers.

“Yeah,” she says before letting go. “You’re not just my partner,” she says, repeating what they told each other only a few weeks ago, even though it feels like so much longer.

Nathan aims a smile down at his feet. It’s a complicated sort of smile, one she isn’t prepared to riddle out the implications of just yet but a smile, nonetheless.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “You’re not just my partner, either.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I put a lot of work into this chapter and I hope you enjoyed it. :) Comments and feedback are always cherished and appreciated. <3
> 
> -
> 
>  **Scene summary for those with trypanophobia:** Nathan is rattled by the comfortable and casually intimate way the fake Duke references his transness (doubly so due to a lingering fear that part of Duke’s wish might have involved wishing Nathan was cisgender). He struggles to take his bi-weekly testosterone dose because his hands are shaking. Duke notices and offers to do it for him. Nathan finds out that the reason this Duke knows how to administer it is because--in the alternate universe--Duke was there with him the first time he ever took it and helped him when he had a hard time with it. Nathan struggles with the emotional impact of imagining a life where he and Duke maintained that kind of emotional intimacy and where Duke was present for those kinds of milestones in his life, which he had to face alone.


	6. where would you have gone?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A hard sell.

**DUKE**

Nathan mentions that it’s Audrey’s day off in passing, sandwiched between two other thoughts about when he’ll be home from work and thanking Duke for getting up to make breakfast. It occurs to Duke, as Nathan scurries out the front door practically before he’s swallowed his last bite, that this might be his best and only shot at getting through to Audrey without Nathan around to complicate the whole venture.

The problem, of course, is that in this timeline or universe or fever dream or whatever it is, the Gull isn’t the Gull, Audrey isn’t technically his friend, and wherever she’s living, it definitely isn’t on top of his restaurant.

And he has no idea where it is.

They also got off to a bad enough start already without Duke showing up unannounced at her home that he maybe would not or should not actually know the address of (even if he _could_ needle Dwight for it).

Trouble or no trouble, he has _manners_. Whether or not he always chooses to _use_ them is a different and unrelated matter. But he certainly _has_ them.

So. He doesn’t know where she lives. Or what she does in her spare time.

But what he does know? Is Audrey Parker.

Duke lets his car idle outside of the station and waits. Day off or no, if this Audrey is even remotely like the woman he remembers, she’ll find a reason to drop by. Sure, Nathan will shoo her out the door and send her home, but she’ll swing through just in case.

He used to think she was just brainwashed by the weird cult of the grind so many work environments fostered, but the longer he knows her the more he thinks it runs deeper than that. He’s no shrink, but Audrey keeps busy like she has to. Like if she doesn’t move very far and very fast, something inside of herself might eat her alive.

He can relate, in his own way.

No one sails halfway across the world alone because they _like_ themselves.

Sure enough, at half past nine, a familiar sedan pulls parallel to the fire lane and Audrey steps out of the cab.

Duke leans out his window with a cheerful smile. “I do believe that’s a ticketing offense, Officer Parker,” he calls, voice bright. When she turns in surprise, he offers her a wave.

She rolls her eyes when she realizes who it is. Pivoting to head his direction, she asks, “You gonna tell the police?”

“Well, ma’am,” he says, putting on his best Concerned Citizen voice, “I think you’d agree that no one is above the law.” It takes all his self-control to keep a straight face.

She screws up her mouth like she’s trying very, very hard not to dignify him with a smile and nods at the place where his tires cross into the fire lane. “A little hypocritical don’t you think?”

“Ah,” he notes with a wag of his finger, “but, you see, I am idling and you—” He points to her car. “Are clearly parked.”

“Mm-hm,” Audrey agrees skeptically. “And?”

He offers her his brightest, most shit-eating grin. “ _And_ ,” he continues, “I have it on good faith that you’re supposed to be off work today.”

Rolling her eyes at him, Audrey explains, “I was just stopping by to—”

“Lucky for you,” he interjects, “you are exactly the woman I was hoping to see.”

(Frankly, he doesn’t expect this to go all that well given the train wreck that was their last conversation. But he has to hope that being the romantic partner of her work partner has earned him some amount of her good graces.)

She raises an eyebrow, looking suddenly curious. Crossing her arms and settling her weight on one hip, she asks, “If you knew I had the day off, why did you come looking for me at the station?” Her tone remains friendly, but a wariness sparks to life underneath it. He ignores the way it stings.

“Well,” he puffs, leaning into the charm as best he can, “Nathan did say you were a workaholic.”

Audrey stares at him for a second before scoffing, “He’s one to talk.” The suspicious glint leaves her eyes and she relaxes. The change is so subtle, someone who didn’t know what to look for might not even notice, but Duke sees it for the good news it is.

“Alright,” she concedes. “I’ll bite. What do you want?”

Duke taps his fingers along the door of his truck. “Well, Nathan’s birthday’s coming up,” he lies, “And I was thinking of getting him a little something to spruce up the office. Since you also would have to look at it every day, I thought I’d get your opinion on it.”

“Well, that’s very considerate of you,” she drawls in a placating, not entirely convinced sort of way.

Okay, time for the Hail Mary. He clicks his teeth, making a show of being ‘caught’. “Aaand my truck’s been riding pretty rough lately and I was hoping to maybe get a ride out to Bangor?”

She looks more intrigued than irritated, although that may just be wishful thinking on his part.

“What’s out in Bangor?”

Now this he doesn’t have to lie about. He aims a bashful grin down at his steering wheel and says, “Art shop. A nice one. Nate’s—crafty.”

“There’s an art store in town,” Audrey points out, but he can tell by the softness to her tone that she thinks it’s sweet, even if she won’t say as much.

Duke tries not to get ahead of himself, but convincing her starts to feel like less of an uphill battle and more of a sure thing. He shrugs a shoulder. “Mary’s doing her best with what she’s got but, y’know. Paintbrushes and cheap chalk pastels do not a craft store make.”

Audrey aims a chuckle at her feet and rocks on her heels. “So, you’re springing for the fancy stuff.”

“Well, Officer Parker,” he singsongs, “Something you should know about me is that I have very expensive taste.”

Eyebrows raised, she nods amusedly. “And Nathan?”

Duke shoots her a wry, pleased with himself little grin. “Eh, Nathan has me around to spoil him.”

She peers down at him with an expression that might be ‘skeptical but intrigued’ but might also be ‘unimpressed and cautious’. He schools his expression into something calm and cheerful and hopes the frantic patter of his heartbeat isn’t loud enough to give him away.

“Fuck it,” she says finally. A grin creeps across her face. “Let’s go to Bangor.”

Being trapped in a car (a very small car that has no leg room even with the passengers seat pushed all the way back) with Not-Quite-Audrey-Parker is both more awkward and less awkward than he expected it to be. They don’t have the rapport he’s used to. She maintains a friendly but professional distance that he tries not to find insulting. But things also don’t go nearly so badly as they did his first day in this topsy-turvy version of Haven.

And, to her credit, she doesn’t seem to be holding that particular blunder against him.

They’re maybe ten minutes into their thirty-minute drive—just now hitting the highway—when Audrey glances briefly at him over her shoulder and hums, “So. You gonna tell me what this is all about?” She wears a knowing smile that makes him feel transparent.

“Uh, what what’s all about?” He asks, knowing full well he’s never been all that good at playing stupid.

Audrey huffs a little laugh. “Yeah, Nathan’s birthday? It’s in December.”

“Ah,” Duke sighs with a wince. He isn’t sure if his first impulse is to be embarrassed or just impressed. He sits in quiet for a moment, waffling between trying to string up some new lie and just owning up to the truth. In the end, he compromises with deflection. “If you knew, why did you come?”

Shrugging one shoulder, she says, “Somethin’ to do.” She grins. “Besides, I wanted to see how long you’d keep up the act.”

Duke can’t help but startle into a laugh. “Act?” He asks. “Oh, don’t get me wrong—we’re _going_ to the art store.”

She barks a short laugh. “Well, I’ll give you points for commitment.”

“You’d be the first,” he drawls, realizing too late that the joke won’t land.

She just snorts in disbelief and fires off a sarcastic, “Yeah, I can tell you’re a real commitment-phobe.”

Dodging the topic entirely, Duke redirects the conversation into an apologetic, “I, uh, think we got off on the wrong foot, the other day.”

She raises her eyebrows and casts him a sideways glance. “And you thought tricking me into chauffeuring your road trip was the best way to deal with that?”

With a shrug and a sheepish smile, he admits, “Well, it sounds worse when you say it like that.”

She shakes her head. Aiming a grin out the window, she says, “You’re a strange man, Duke Crocker.”

Duke catches himself staring at the way the light kisses her face—how it makes her look golden and otherworldly in a way that tugs at his heart—and forces himself to look away.

“That’s what they tell me,” he murmurs.

Okay. Okay, so—cover blown. Not exactly ideal. But she isn’t turning the car around and she isn’t visibly creeped out, so he’ll call it a win. He already learned the hard way that just talking about the troubles in some last ditched attempt to jog her memory definitely doesn’t work, so instead he tries a more casual, roundabout approach.

“So,” he says, watching her profile as she watches the road. “How are you liking it here in Haven?”

She rolls her eyes. “Come on,” she grouses. “I’m not exactly the new kid anymore.”

“I guess not,” he agrees. “Bet Agent What’s-His-Face wasn’t happy to lose you, though.”

She casts him a confused look. “Who?”

Oh, this isn’t good. “Your old boss?” He prompts. “Uh, at the FBI?”

Audrey peals with laughter that fills the car. It’s a beautiful sound, one he wouldn’t mind hearing more of if it weren’t for the current circumstances.

“The FBI,” she scoffs, dabbing the corner of her eyes with the back of her hand, “That’s a good one.” She squares her shoulders, gripping the wheel firmly at ten and two and pitching her voice low and serious when she says, “Yeah, that’s me, Secret Special Agent Audrey Parker.”

As soon as the joke leaves her mouth, her expression falls into something thoughtful and confused. “Huh,” she murmurs, mostly to herself. “Just got weird déjà vu.” She shakes it off as quick as it comes. “Anyway, uh, yeah definitely not FBI. I’ve been in Haven for a long time.” She shoots him a look, her tone tinged with a skeptical kind of confusion. “You know that.”

That’s—strange. Up until now, all the changes to everyone’s timelines made a certain amount of sense. There was a relatively straightforward (if unexpected) cause and effect to things. Duke stayed in Haven, he and Nathan never went on the fishing trip, Nathan’s trouble didn’t get re-triggered: Nathan didn’t believe in the troubles. Duke was adopted, less connected to his dad, never got into the poker match that would have won him the Rouge: no boat. Duke helped run the restaurant, Bill never got burnt out, his trouble never went off: he never left Haven. Simple enough.

Up until this moment, Duke had assumed that the dominoes leading to whatever was weird with Audrey looked something like: Nathan—untroubled thanks to no more fishing trip—didn’t believe in the troubles and therefore didn’t encourage Audrey to look into them, which meant that the version of Audrey who solved troubles never came to be.

It wouldn’t explain why she didn’t seem immune to whatever trouble fucked up time in the first place, but it did, at least, contextualize why she seemed so disinterested in the very thing that drew her to Haven from the beginning.

This? This total rewriting of how she got here in the first place? This doesn’t make any sense.

He thinks of Lucy and tries to broach the subject gently. “I, uh, thought I heard you mention something about moving out here to look for your mom?”

She seems to think about it for a second before cheerfully correcting, “Nope. Don’t know where you got that.” When she twists in her seat to check her blind spot and change lanes, she pauses to give him a curious, appraising look. “You sure you don’t have me confused with somebody else, or something?”

“All the more reason to have our little road trip, I guess,” Duke chirps. He keeps his tone light and breezy, even when his head spins with a dozen different questions and half-baked theories. “Can’t excuse not knowing anything about my partner’s partner, right?”

“Kinda makes us partners by proxy, huh?” She says with a wide grin before dipping into a self-conscious laugh. “Sorry, sorry, that was a super weird joke.”

Duke ducks his smile, aiming it down at his lap. His chest feels tight with an old and familiar ache. “No, it was funny,” he promises softly. Even if funny isn’t the right word.

Is it worth it, he wonders? A life where he gets to keep Nathan when it means losing her? Can love be bartered and traded like that? Set aside and settled for, sacrificed in the name of cutting his losses?

This life with Nathan already felt wrong. But calculating in the distance between himself and the woman next to him, it feels doubly so: the hollow, unfinished echo of a life he might have wanted, a version of his future he could have imagined and even appreciated before Audrey, but that—in the wake of her—can only ever feel incomplete. Wanting. Lacking.

Whatever world he’s landed in, the troubles still exist here. Audrey still exists here. Which means the Hunter is coming, only weeks away.

And she has no idea.

He wants to scream. He wants to tell her who she is, what she can do. He wants to warn her of what’s coming. But it won’t do any good. If anything, it might make things worse—might undo what little headway he’s made this morning and put him back at square one. The idea of her looking at him with that same impersonal, wary uncertainty as she had his first day here makes his stomach turn.

She keeps tossing these tentative smiles his way and he’s reminded of her early days in Haven, when the unspoken something between them was bright and technicolor and new. It’s so familiar. But that Audrey was sharp and focused and driven. This Audrey seems almost—blurred. Like the brightest parts of her have been sanded down to a dull point.

He’s at risk of being lost in his own thoughts when—out of the corner of his eye—he’d swear the tree line moves in a way it shouldn’t—stutters a few feet forward and then back again like a distortion in an old VHS tape. When he watches it directly, he can’t make it happen again and finally writes it off as some kind of trick of momentum. (When it happens again a few miles later, he starts to think it wasn’t a fluke, after all. Either that or he really needs to get his eyes checked.)

Mundane of an errand as it is, his drive just keeps getting stranger.

Duke directs Audrey through downtown until they pull into the parking lot of Quickdraw Art Supplies. The building looks modest from the outside—tucked into the center of an unremarkable concrete shopping center. Through the windows, though, he can see peeks of the rich wood walls and colorful stock that make the place something special once you step through the doors.

(He took Nathan here once—years and years ago—and watched his eyes light up like a cat with a string of tinsel. He’d touched practically everything in the store, regardless of whether it had anything to do with the kind of crafting he was actually doing.

When they’d climbed back into the beat-up crown vic Nathan was driving back then, Nathan had forgone actually starting the car and instead twisted in his seat to catch Duke by the face and drag him into a clumsy, eager kiss.

“Wh-what was that for?” Duke had laughed, trying to duck his head to hide the sudden flush of heat on his face.

Nathan looked away, too—aimed his voice down at the steering wheel when he murmured, “For listening.”)

“I’ll be damned,” Audrey comments teasingly, “So there really is a fancy art store out here.”

Duke snorts a laugh. “Where’d you think I was taking you?”

She shrugs. “Guess I just kept waiting for you to admit your half-baked plan had more holes in it than you were pretending it did.”

“Hey!” He argues. “My plan was _not_ half-baked. It was three quarters-baked at worst. Little doughy in the middle. Maybe.”

She puffs out an exasperated laugh and he tries to ignore the way it makes his heart skip a beat. As she gets out of the car, she asks, “You’re not gonna get him a gift card, are you? For his not-birthday?”

Throwing a hand across his heart, Duke makes a show of looking offended. “Audrey Parker, I would never.”

Choosing a gift turns out to be more difficult than Duke had originally expected it to be. Once upon a time, Nathan had an interest in a lot of different sorts of crafty, artsy things—that is, until the police academy hammered most of it out of him. (Duke won’t ever let go of that grudge, for more reasons than one.)

But the Nathan he’s been sharing a bed with for the last few days seems remarkably better adjusted than the one he’s used to. It isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he might dabble in something more complex than decoupage, should the inspiration strike.

Audrey follows him around the store, touching everything and asking frequent questions about what something or other was “even for”. Duke finds that he had more answers to said questions than he would have expected. Idly, he wonders how much of that came from watching Nathan.

“He’s really into all this, huh?” She comments as they round the corner of another aisle. “I mean, I knew about the decoupage, but I don’t know if I knew he was _serious_ about the decoupage.”

“He used to paint,” Duke murmurs. It shouldn’t feel like a secret. It isn’t a secret. And yet somehow, it feels like something that wasn’t his to tell. Still, when he remembers Nathan sat in front of a canvas, paint splattered halfway up his arms, smeared over his jaw and forehead and the crest of his nose, it makes Duke’s heart spinout and stutter.

Nathan picked up painting the summer after high school, when their futures were still uncertain but not set in stone yet. It was, technically, the beginning of the breaking. You could trace all their fault lines back to the day high school ended and they no longer had Haven High to keep them tethered to this town.

(“You’re leaving, too,” Duke had argued. Defensive. Hurt. Nathan _knew_ he wasn’t happy in Haven. He knew that the goal for Duke had always, always been to leave. But once it stopped being talk and _maybes_ and _somedays_ and started becoming _now_ and _you could come with me_ , suddenly Nathan didn’t want to hear it anymore.

Duke kept pushing. “You’re leaving for your fancy college, anyway.”

“Yeah, an hour away,” Nathan snapped. “Not—” he waved his hand, pacing and flustered and heated. “Not halfway across the world to who knows where. Alone. On a boat.”

“So, come with me.”

Nathan shot him a frustrated, withering look. “I have school, Duke.”

Maybe it wasn’t meant that way, but it felt final at the time. It felt like a choice. It felt _personal_ in a way that wasn’t fair. But his teenaged self didn’t have that kind of objectivity. All he knew was he was being abandoned, again, and that if it was going to happen anyway, he might as well do it himself.)

In a world where Duke never left, a world where Nathan had someone in his corner for the decade he would have been stuck treading water alone—did that Nathan still paint? Would he want to? Duke searched that house top to bottom, and he didn’t find any evidence of it. No easels or acrylics or unused canvases. Nothing homemade hanging on the walls.

In the end it feels presumptuous to unbury that from Nathan’s past. Duke’s fully aware of just how absurd it is to cling to social convention for his fake birthday present for his fake boyfriend, but some part of him is too used to seeing Nathan as a powder keg, these days. They’ve spent years misunderstanding each other, sometimes willfully. Sometimes Nathan’s fault, sometimes his own.

In the end, he picks out a rich, wooden frame and a puzzle of an old steel trawler; something Nathan can put together and varnish and hang if he wants. This Nathan won’t appreciate the trawler’s resemblance to the Rouge, but Duke finds himself attached to anyway. And the colors are vibrant and lush in the way he knows Nathan loves. It isn’t the most personal of presents, but it’ll do.

It’s not like it will matter when everything’s put right side up, anyway.

Things get weird after he gives the cashier his card.

Duke’s chest goes funny, a strange fuzz around his heartbeats. Suddenly, the other patrons in the store start to look wrong: like a scene filmed in reverse and then played forward. Unnatural, disjointed, out of sync. One moment he’s standing at the register and the next, he’s in front of the door with a bag in his hands. He’s vaguely aware of having walked from one place to the other, but in the same odd, time-warpy way as being stoned. And he’s certain he hasn’t smoked recently.

“Did you see that?” He asks Audrey—Audrey who stands beside him and not over by the register where he’d swear he saw her last.

“See what?” She asks, looking up from her phone.

Duke buttons down his confusion. He clears his throat and shakes his head. “You know what, nothing. Just a, uh,” he clicks his teeth, gesturing out the plate glass windows, “a lady in a funny hat. Just missed her.”

Audrey snorts a laugh and rolls her eyes before brushing past him out the door. “God forbid I miss the funny hat,” she drawls.

Duke has a hell of a lot more questions than he has answers, but he knows two things for absolutely certain:

This isn’t place isn’t Bangor or Haven or maybe even Maine.

And that is not Audrey Parker.

* * *

**NATHAN**

Every day leads to new dead ends. Nathan follows up with every person in Haven (and a few out of it) who might have even the slightest idea about the Flores trouble or the temporaries or the “place” created by the wishes. But every path just brings with it more questions and more bad news.

The temporary Duke recovers a little of his old self, but he’s muted now in a way that makes Nathan uncomfortable to look at. The more familiar aspects of his personality seem smothered, sedated until he seems less like a copy and more like a copy of a copy of a copy: just a hazy, low-contrast image with the details blurred out.

The temporary ends up deciding to show up for his shift at the Gull, even though Nathan isn’t sure he’d make the same call if the situation were reversed. It seems pointless and exhausting to mimic a life that isn’t truly your own. But Duke—the real Duke—always felt the need to keep busy. In the end, Nathan can’t begrudge him whatever distraction works.

Audrey and Nathan meet back up at the Gull. He finds her sitting outside on the deck, looking as exhausted and discouraged as he feels.

“Nothing at the Herald, I’m guessing?” He asks once he’s in earshot.

She seems to startle, pulled from her thoughts.

Sighing, she kicks the table leg. “Nothing,” she confirms. “A huge, stinking pile of nothing.” Turning her gaze back on the waves, she says, “Vivian was right about the Flores family keeping their trouble under wraps. Couldn’t find so much as a whisper about it.”

Nathan shrugs and tries not to let the despair get its claws in too deep. “Probably not the kind of thing the Herald has to hide.” Wrinkling his nose in disgust, he corrects, “Well—aside from the… withering.” She reacts to the word the same way he does, seeming to almost recoil from it.

Looking over her shoulder at the shape of the temporary Duke through the window of the Gull, she murmurs an ashamed, “We should probably take this upstairs.”

Nathan can’t resist looking. If the temporary noticed them in the first place, he’s pretending not to now. He wipes down the bar and collects dishes. Maybe it’s Nathan’s own bias creeping in, but he looks—broken.

Audrey gets to her feet, arms tucked tight against her chest. She seems to read his mind when she says, “I can’t look at him, like this.” She pauses. “Does that make me terrible?”

Nathan doesn’t know the answer to that. “Probably,” he drawls, aiming for a joke. “Guess it makes me terrible, too.”

Huffing a sound that doesn’t quite live up to a laugh, Audrey nods. “Comforting,” she says wryly.

He shrugs, knowing full well that the smile on his face probably looks fake and hollow.

“C’mon,” she decides, nodding toward the stairs. “I’m not much of a cook, but I’ll order us a pizza.”

Neither one of them really eats. Nathan’s used to food feeling perfunctory, but even the energy of pretending seems beyond him tonight. He’s never hungry anyway, but even his non-appetite feels especially low. Meanwhile, Audrey looks wound up and distracted.

Nathan likes to think he knows her well, but with everything going on he can’t even begin to guess what’s going on in her head, right now.

“I promised you we’d talk,” she says finally.

“We don’t have to,” Nathan says. The words are out of his mouth practically before she finishes her sentence. He stares guiltily down at his hands. Picking at the skin around his nails, he mumbles, “Things are—strange. It’s a lot to handle. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

She doesn’t answer. He plucks at his nailbed until a well of blood springs up along the cuticle and he forces himself to stop. When he finally looks up at her, he doesn’t understand the expression on her face.

“What?” He asks. He hates the way he can’t keep the defensive uncertainty out of his tone. He’s too goddamn transparent with her. Always has been.

Leaning back in her chair, Audrey crosses her arms and looks away. A visible agitation thrums just underneath her skin. She’s antsy—restless in a way he isn’t used to seeing on her. He realizes too late that he’s gone and said the wrong thing.

Luckily for them both, she seems hellbent on ignoring it.

“Look,” she says, landing somewhere between diplomatic and irritated. “I’m just gonna say it. Just. Put the elephant in the room.”

He waits.

Puffing out a frustrated breath, Audrey says, “We both have feelings for him. That’s—obvious. You know that. I know that. So. There.” She waves her hand. “We’ve said it.”

Nathan almost denies it. Even though it would be stupid to deny it when he’s already admitted to it—maybe not in so many words, but he’s said it. He’s proven it. Still, he spent so much of his life pretending it was hate.

It’s easy to love Duke in his absence, easy to love him when the threat of losing Duke and Audrey both looms over his head.

Will it be so easy to love him once they fix this and theory becomes practice?

“Are you going to say anything?” She asks, kicking his boot.

“We both have feelings for him,” Nathan echoes a little uselessly. Audrey makes a very visible effort not to roll her eyes, but she doesn’t interrupt him. The quiet stretches a little longer between them before Nathan drops his head into his hands. The weight of the last few years settles on his back.

“We’ve been fucking this up, haven’t we?” He asks.

Audrey sighs. “Yeah, I think we have.”

“If he comes back—” Nathan starts.

“When,” Audrey corrects, her voice stern and unyielding.

Nathan swallows his own doubts. “When,” he agrees. “When he comes back. Do you think he’ll even want this? Us?” He doesn’t say _after how we treated him_ , but he doesn’t think he has to. They both wear guilt like a coat two sizes too small.

Audrey pushes a forced levity into her tone when she jokes, “Well, we know he’ll want one of us, right?” He hears her tap his ankle with her shoe. “He wished up a whole life with you, remember?”

Nathan’s never felt all that good at reading people, but he doesn’t think he imagines the hurt in her voice.

“He didn’t, though,” Nathan reminds her. “He wished out the fishing trip. The rest just—came along with it.”

He doesn’t know how to say it—not in a way that doesn’t wind up hurting them both—but he was Duke’s past. Audrey—he thinks maybe she’s supposed to be Duke’s future. With the way he and Duke keep hurting each other, he can’t help but feel like they missed their shot a dozen times over. The wish is just that. Wishful thinking.

He wants to be wrong, but he’s having a hard time with optimism, these days.

That flustered restlessness rears its head again and Audrey gets to her feet, pacing the room with an unfocused energy. “Look, we have no idea what he’s gonna want when he gets back,” she says. Grounding herself, she comes to a decisive stop, puffs out a sigh, and levels him with a look. “But I think _we_ need to know what we want before we ask that from him.”

Staring up at her, Nathan asks the question he’s terrified to have to turned back on himself.

“What do you want?”

“I—” She starts, then stops—seemingly self-conscious. She has to turn away, out the window, when she admits, “I don’t want to have to chose between the two realest things in my life.”

“Both of us?” He asks, more for clarity than anything. He knew this was what this conversation was building towards, but somehow it still doesn’t feel quite real. It’s not that the idea never occurred to him, but it never occurred to him as anything that might be possible. It was a passing fantasy he tried not to allow himself to indulge in.

“It’s what you want too, right?” She asks. When he looks up at her, she wears an uncharacteristically nervous expression. Huffing out a laugh that comes out a little forced, she says, “Or have I been reading this whole thing really, really wrong? I mean _you_ asked _me_ out.”

Nathan can’t help the smile that crosses his face. “And you kissed me,” he points out, “Several times.”

Audrey returns the smile. Some of the tension seems to uncoil from her shoulders as they ease their way towards an understanding. “Yeah, well,” she mumbles, casting a grin down at her feet. “You were taking too long.”

“And with Duke? I mean, did you—” Nathan’s surprised to find that he’s more excited by the question than anxious or jealous.

Audrey shakes her head and he tells himself it doesn’t make sense to be disappointed. “Y’know, for someone who pretends to be such a lady’s man, he’s… kind of skittish.”

“Only when it matters,” Nathan says without thinking.

She quirks a thoughtful grin. “Was he nervous with you?”

It’s been a long time since Nathan really allowed himself to look back on what he and Duke were with anything except bitter regret. Now, with Audrey smiling back at him, it feels strangely simple to let himself dig up those memories—the softer ones from before it all fell apart. Chuckling down at his lap, he answers, “Terrified.”

She runs a hand through her hair, caught somewhere between warm and self-conscious. “Yeah,” she murmurs with a small smile, “I, uh—I can relate.”

Nathan remembers just how woefully out of his depth this whole idea is. “Have you ever done anything like this before?” He asks.

“Audrey Parker hasn’t,” she offers. “Well—nothing serious, anyway. You?”

Nathan snorts a laugh. His romantic history isn’t exactly robust in the first place. “Yeah, definitely not.” He listens to the sound of his foot tapping the leg of the coffee table. “Is this a horrible idea?”

“I mean, yes,” Audrey says. “But not for that reason.”

Nathan wonders if the smile that crosses his face looks as sad as it feels. They’ve been treading water for days. He’s doing his level best not to let himself feel helpless. “What reason, then?”

She laughs and drops down onto the couch next to him, sitting cross-legged facing him. Her knees press against his thigh; he can’t feel them through the denim, but it’s enough to know that she’s there. “Uh, I don’t know,” she teases, “Maybe the supernatural sword of Damocles above all our heads?”

“Oh, is that all?” He jokes.

She doesn’t even touch him, but her smile radiates a warmth so bright, he’d swear he could feel it. All of the sudden she’s staring at his mouth and he doesn’t know how to react. Breathing becomes all at once more difficult than it ought to be.

“It’s not just Duke,” she says, her voice low and honeyed. She glances back up, seemingly remembering to meet his gaze. Her hand finds his when he’s not looking, and the sudden pressure rockets up his spine like a firework. “You know that, right?”

“Could stand a reminder,” he jokes. His voice sounds dry and weak even to his own ears.

She shifts up onto her knees, reaching out to cradle his face. He sucks in a breath that borders on a gasp, tipping into the sun-bright heat of her hands. Their foreheads bump together a little too hard and she muffles a laugh against his cheek.

“I couldn’t do this without you,” she admits—hushed, warm, honest.

He remembers his own hands. He finds her waist and can’t resist the impulse to sneak his thumbs under the cotton of her shirt to the skin underneath. It’s a strange contrast: all that nothing in the palms of his hands versus _everything_ on the pads of his fingers. He whispers her name. At least, he thinks he does. Whatever happens in the moment before her lips find his ceases to mean anything.

Somewhere, a distant corner of Nathan’s mind has the sense to feel some kind of ashamed: ashamed to be kissing Audrey like this when a hollow replica of Duke haunts the floor below them, when the real thing is as lost to them as ever. The guilt touches along the edges of his mind, but it doesn’t find a way in. Not in this moment. Not with Audrey’s hands drifting from his cheeks to his jaw to the back of his neck.

Saving one of them isn’t enough. Part of him—an admittedly selfish, shortsighted part—had expected fixing things with Audrey to settle the wanton restlessness in the back of his skull. But even with her in his arms, he can image all the places Duke belongs: how his hands would settle at the small of Audrey’s back, how he’d talk low and playful and smug.

It’s supposed to be the three of them. Nathan understands that now more clearly than he ever has. The three of them against the troubles, the three of them in the fight for Haven, the three of them carving out a future for themselves.

He must have lost his focus—or maybe drawn in a breath that rattled just a little too much—because Audrey presses a hand to the center of his chest, pushing their foreheads together when she murmurs, “I know,” even though he hasn’t said anything at all.

He’s shocked by the thinness in his own voice when he nuzzles closer to her and asks, “What if we can’t save him, Parker?”

She pets his hair. Resting her cheek against the top of his head, she teases, “You’ve met him,” she murmurs, gentle and reassuring, “And if I know anything about Duke Crocker, it’s that he is perfectly capable of saving himself.”

* * *

**DUKE**

Duke doesn’t ask if he can come over to Dwight’s place so much as show up on his front door barely ten minutes after texting that he was on his way. Dwight looks at him with the exhausted, patient expression of a man who’d been planning to eat his dinner in peace.

“You know some people might call this rude,” Dwight drawls, no real heat behind the words. He steps out of the way of the threshold, gesturing Duke inside.

Duke claps him appreciatively on the chest as he passes. “For what it’s worth,” he says, “it’s important.”

“Isn’t it always?” Dwight sighs as he closes the door. If Duke didn’t know better, he could swear he rolls his eyes, too.

He stops by his refrigerator to grab them both a beer before pulling up a seat at his kitchen table. Duke’s struck briefly by how comfortable the place is. He’d expected more of a bachelor pad, given how many hours Dwight spends cleaning up everyone else’s messes. But the kitchen is clean and bright, all white tile and sunlight through the window.

Dwight reclines in his chair, stretching stiffly. “Alright,” he says, nodding up at Duke, “This better be good.”

Duke takes a moment to consider the absurdity of what he’s about to say. Of course, given the absurdity of everything else he’s said to Dwight in the past week, he decides there’s no real point in aiming for tact. Time to rip off the band-aid.

He sucks in a breath. “I don’t think this place is real, Squatch.”

Dwight regards him with an eerie calm. He takes a sip of his beer, leisurely and unaffected. “Bold take,” he drawls, tapping his fingers along the neck of the bottle in a thoughtless rhythm. He raises an eyebrow at Duke. “I’m not real either, I take it?”

Cautious and a little confused by the reaction, Duke slowly sinks into the seat across from him. “No,” he says, brow furrowed. “You’re not.”

Dwight shrugs. A smile plays across his face, so small Duke barely catches it. “Gonna have to agree to disagree with you there, buddy.”

“You don’t believe me,” Duke sighs, deflated. For some reason, he thought that Dwight would. Not that it makes any sense to be disappointed by the reaction of a podperson, but Duke stopped claiming any amount of logic ages ago.

Dwight casts him a glance that borders on pitying. He leans forward in his seat, setting the bottle on the table between them. “It’s a pretty hard sell, Duke. If I’m not real, what am I?”

Duke stares down at the table. “I don’t know,” he admits.

“I’ll give you points for originality.”

Duke shakes his head. He feels like he’s trying to put together a puzzle but missing half the pieces. “I spent the day with Audrey,” he tries to explain. “And she’s wrong, Squatch.”

“That’s what you said about everyone,” Dwight points out. “And the restaurant. And your—boat.”

“No, it’s different,” he insists. He realizes as the words are about to leave his mouth what a waste of time it is to argue the point. If he’s right and all of this isn’t real, then Dwight will remember the version of Audrey that Audrey remembers. Pointing out the discrepancies won’t mean anything to him.

“Forget it,” Duke sighs, slumping in his chair.

Dwight kicks his shin—a gentle, familiar gesture. “I’m sorry, Duke,” he says. To his credit, he sounds like he means it. “That’s the thing about this town. The more you poke around, the less it makes any sense.”

The way Dwight words it jostles loose a memory: sitting at Nathan’s kitchen table with Angela, listening to her talk about the noises at the house on Marston Road. He remembers thinking it was strange—the idea that Dwight and his buddies would case the place without actually doing anything about it or going inside.

It’s a longshot, but it feels important somehow.

He sits forward in his chair, leaning against the table when he asks, “What’s happening at the Holloway house?”

Surprise colors Dwight’s expression but it’s gone as soon as it appears. “What do you mean?” Dwight asks, in the cautious, diplomatic way of a man trying to gauge how much the opposing party actually knows without giving away anything more.

“Angela’s seen you scoping the place out,” Duke says. He taps the table. “It’s a trouble, right? ‘Cause if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be you. It’d be the police.”

Dwight looks suddenly unfocused—distant, like he’s trying to recall a memory that he can’t quite reach. “Yeah,” he agrees softly, “it’s a trouble.”

“Okay,” Duke prompts. “What is it?”

Dwight stares at the beer in his hands. Duke’s never seen him like this: unmoored. “I—it’s nothing. We’re—still investigating.”

Duke finds himself struck with the unsettling feeling that if he pushes too hard, Dwight—Dwight Hendrickson, the fixer, Sasquatch, _that_ Dwight—might break. Careful as he can, he asks, “Investigating what?”

Finally, Dwight meets his gaze. His eyes are wide and shocked, lost. “I—I don’t know.”

Duke reaches out and squeezes Dwight’s wrist. He _feels_ real enough. It all feels real. His skin is warm, the hairs on his arm noticeably coarse under Duke’s thumb. It seems too vivid to be Duke’s own imagination, but he supposes that’s where the trouble comes in.

“What are you investigating, Dwight?” He asks again. “Why are you there?”

Dwight tugs his arm away, retreating to the edge of his chair, staring down at his hands like they no longer belong to him. “This doesn’t make sense,” he whispers. “I—why don’t I know?”

There’s something awful about seeing him like this. For a man so damnably calm and unflappable and certain, he looks for a moment like he might be swept away in a strong breeze.

“My guess?” Duke offers. “We caught up.”

It’s just a theory, but it’s the best one he’s got. “Whatever this place is, whoever made it,” Duke continues, “it can’t answer questions about something that hasn’t happened yet.”

Dwight begins to collect himself. He nods, his voice steadier and surer when he says, “And you think the Holloway house hasn’t happened yet.”

Duke gestures loosely. “You’ve gotta admit, it makes sense, right?”

Shaking his head, Dwight’s face scrunches up in thought. He seems to be trying desperately to talk his way around this, out of this. Duke can’t really blame him.

“But you said this is different from the Haven you remember anyway,” Dwight argues, “So why would it matter if we caught up? Why wouldn’t the trouble just fake it? Fill in the gaps?”

“Look, Squatch,” Duke sighs, “I’m flying blind here, same as you. But if this place _is_ improvising, maybe there’s a limit to what it can do. I went to Bangor today and shit started getting weird. Not to go all conspiracy theory, but like some real glitch in the matrix type shit.”

Dwight nods. He takes a visible deep breath and centers himself. “Okay. Okay—so, what do we do?”

“You can take longer with your existential crisis or whatever,” Duke says, an edge of humor creeping in despite his better judgment. “It’s cool. I can wait.”

“Fuck you, Duke,” Dwight mutters, staring down at his beer.

Offering a lazy, exaggerated shrug, Duke singsongs, “I mean, maybe if you ask nicer.”

Dwight stares at him for a moment and Duke briefly wonders if he’s about to be strangled to death by a maybe-make-believe doppelganger—right up until the moment when Dwight’s face crumples and he dissolves into a helpless, bright belly laugh. It’s contagious.

They laugh harder than they should, really. It isn’t funny so much as absurd—all of it. The whole thing. But they laugh and laugh until it hurts, until tears prick the corners of their eyes and they fight for air. Finally, they settle down, the momentum knocked out from under them.

“Damn,” Dwight puffs, shaking his head and leaning back in his seat. “It’s true, isn’t it? I’m not real.”

“You’re taking it very well, I think,” Duke says. Despite the fact that he’s still tittering through the tail end of their laughter, he means it genuinely. For whatever that’s worth in the midst of all—this. Duke wonders how much the not-really-Dwight _feels_ at all. Do the clockwork machinations of this Haven spin on regardless of what Duke does? Or do they cease to exist when he isn’t looking directly at them?

If this all really is ephemeral as some kind of dream, what happens to all of them when he wakes up?

Duke buries the question. Dwight regards him with a long, quiet look that makes him think maybe he didn’t wipe the worry off his face quickly enough. However, in true Hendrickson fashion, Dwight doesn’t poke at it. Duke’s grateful for him, even if he isn’t real.

“So,” Dwight muses, “if the trouble can’t create whatever’s happening in the Holloway house, that’s exactly where we need to go, right?

Duke clicks his teeth. “You sure you wanna go pulling on that thread, Squatch?” He asks. “Might not like where it ends.”

Dwight’s helped him plenty; he can handle this next part on his own if he has to.

“I’m coming with you,” Dwight decides, stern and final.

Duke lifts his beer in a toast. “Whatever you say, big guy.” Privately, he’s glad. This Dwight might not be real, but he’s the only ally Duke’s got.

Or—

That isn’t strictly speaking true, is it? Somehow, in this strange and off-center place, Duke finds himself surrounded by people who care about him. But it’s smoke and mirrors. Audrey isn’t Audrey. Nathan isn’t Nathan. Angela isn’t—

Isn’t anyone, probably. Some amalgam of Nathan’s mother and Gloria and the old high school librarian and anyone else who was ever kind to him when it counted.

But even so, Dwight’s the only one here who ever felt like he was working _with_ Duke instead of against him, and that counts for something.

Dwight pushes back from the table and gets to his feet. “We should go before it gets dark,” he says, all business.

Duke stands, catching him by the arm as he moves past him. “Listen, Squatch—I’ve got kind of a bad feeling about this.” He sighs. “If this goes south, I just wanna say—"

Dwight puffs a dismissive sound and tries to wave him off. “Don’t go giving my eulogy just yet,” he grumbles.

“I just want to say thank you,” Duke insists. He squeezes Dwight’s arm once before letting go. “That first day was a nightmare. Everybody— _handled_ me. Like I was coming apart at the seams.” He stumbles into a low laugh. “And, y’know what? Maybe I was. But you listened to me.” He tucks his hands in his pockets and tries to rediscover his own practiced calm—something that seems to have deserted him in the last few hours or so. “I’m not gonna pretend I understand the, uh, _cosmic implications_ of who’s real or why or whatever. But that was real to me, okay? So, thanks.” He shrugs. “That’s it.”

Before Dwight can cut in with some kind of denial or rebuttal Duke adds a fond, if exasperated, “See? It wasn’t your eulogy, you dick.” Duke smacks him across the chest with the back of his hand.

Dwight ducks a small smile. (And Duke wonders at the kind of trouble that would create all of this, that would rebuild a copy of the world he knows down to the smallest detail, that would remember things as mundane and specific as how Dwight rolls his eyes and shakes his head and bites down on a grin. It might be impressive if it weren’t so insidious. It might be beautiful if it weren’t—the way troubles always, always, always are—hiding something rotten underneath.)

“You ready to go find out what the hell’s going on?” Dwight asks, nodding toward the door.

Duke grins and squares his shoulders. “Thought you’d never ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who's continued to stick with me through this beast of a fic! (And my entirely inconsistent upload schedule) As always, feedback is hugely appreciated. We're coming into the final stretch, now! I have some big plans and I hope you like them! c:


	7. would i return to you?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The belly of the thing.

**JORDAN**

Jordan doesn’t appreciate that the Guard safehouse has somehow turned into the new home base for the Duke Crocker defense squad. In fact, she’d have been more than happy if half these people never had any concept of the Guard at all. Everything about Nathan, from his temper to his obsession with Audrey to the tattoo on his arm, gives her the impression that he’s going to become a problem. (And that, of course, is assuming he isn’t one already: a point she’s more than prepared to argue.)

Jordan hovers at the edge of their little meeting less with the intention to help and more to make sure she knows what they’re up to.

She trusts Dwight. She does. And if she had to, she’d leave him to it. But she would rather be here, herself.

It’s a little bit funny, honestly. None of them has any earthly idea what to do about the mess Crocker’s in. They’re all just throwing spaghetti at the wall, waiting for something to stick.

Half an hour in and they still haven’t gotten anywhere.

“If the temporary _is_ connected to Duke, he doesn’t seem to know about it,” Audrey sighs, wrapping her arms around herself.

Nathan—who’s spent the last ten minutes of conversation brooding thoughtfully in the corner—breaks his silence to suddenly ask, “What happens if we kill him?”

Even Jordan recoils at that one.

“Nathan, what the fuck,” she sneers. She’s more than aware that her sudden distaste for killing Crockers might come off as hypocritical, but after having met the temporary, she just doesn’t have the heart to want it dead. It’s—strange and sad and out of place. She hardly knows the original at all, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that that thing isn’t Duke Crocker.

In the end, she kind of feels sorry for it.

Nathan holds up his hands in surrender. “It’s not a suggestion,” he rushes to explain. “It’s just a question.”

“Yeah, well it’s a stupid question,” Gloria grouses. She crosses her arms and nestles down further into the couch like she’s putting down roots.

“It’s too risky,” Dwight agrees. “And we’ve got no reason to think it would work.”

Dwight leans against the wall opposite Jordan. She’s known him a long time, has a good grip on the subtleties of his body language. He holds himself calm and sure and steady, but she knows that look in his eyes. He’s scared.

Damned idiot, went and got attached.

“Isn’t talking people down from their troubles your whole—” Jordan gestures vaguely in Audrey’s direction. “ _Thing_?” She realizes a moment too late that they’ve somehow roped her into helping.

“It already happened,” Audrey argues. She leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees. “It’s not like it’s something she’s _doing_ now.”

“Do we know that?” Dwight cuts in, his tone thoughtful. The group turns to look at him. He shrugs. “Emilia said the wish was a place. Maybe she’s—maintaining it.”

Gloria hums a skeptical sound. “And what happens to Duke if she shuts it down with him still inside of it?” She asks.

“Hopefully? It spits him back out,” Dwight says.

Nathan paces. Privately, Jordan hopes he trips over his own feet.

“And if it doesn’t spit him out?” Nathan asks. No one answers. No one has to. They all know what the other option looks like.

“It’s a last resort,” Audrey decides finally.

“Hell of a backup plan,” Gloria grumbles.

The room falls into an uncomfortable quiet. Jordan can practically hear the gears turning in everyone’s brains as they scrabble for answers where there aren’t any answers to be found.

Jordan knows a thing or two about troubles with no backdoor. Sometimes there is no solution. Not even from Audrey Parker herself.

Again, Nathan’s the first to raise a stupid question.

“What if one of us made a wish to go get him?” He asks.

Gloria throws up her hands. “It’s in one ear and out the other with this one, isn’t it?”

Before Nathan can try to defend himself, Dwight steps in. He shakes his head, running a hand over his beard in a familiar, contemplative motion. “No, Gloria’s right,” he sighs, “If the wish really is a place, then you’d just make another one and we’d have the same problem twice.”

Audrey straightens, as though struck with some kind of lightning bolt of inspiration. Jordan wonders if solving troubles always looks this dramatic and absurd or if they saved the theatrics for Crocker.

“I’m immune,” Audrey urges.

Gloria rolls her eyes in Audrey’s direction. “Yeah, _and_?”

Audrey practically vibrates with giddy excitement. “It can’t swap me out for a temporary,” she insists.

Jordan snorts. “Yeah, and it can’t grant your wish either.”

Nathan looks so pathetically hopeful that Jordan almost feels bad for him in that moment. “We don’t know that,” he argues.

“It can’t hurt, right?” Audrey asks.

Dwight clicks his teeth. “Yeah, I wouldn’t bank on that,” he drawls.

Gloria shakes her head, her expression tight and ornery. “Viv’s never gonna agree to this.”

“Viv doesn’t have to,” Nathan points out with a one shouldered shrug.

“Oh no,” Gloria argues, stomping forward into his space. “If you get that girl tangled up in all this _again_ —”

“We won’t force her,” Audrey promises. “But I think it has to be her, anyway. She’s the one who made Duke’s wish. She’s connected to it.”

“You _think_ ,” Jordan reminds them. “Sure are taking a lot on faith, here.”

Not that anything’s ever straightforward with the troubles but, by god, she hopes Haven PD is running on more than blind faith and guesswork when it comes to the rest of this town.

She doesn’t feel particularly reassured.

Audrey shakes her head, her calm veneer starting to crack. “We have to do something,” she urges.

Jordan’s sick of listening to them all talk themselves in circles. “You don’t, actually,” she reminds them. “It’s over. He’s a lost cause.”

“It’s worth trying,” Dwight murmurs, damnably calm.

Jordan storms forward with a low, humorless laugh. “Come _on_ , Dwight. You think they’d go this far for the rest of us? For _you_? If it were me in there, do you think those two would still be here playing Nancy Drew?”

Dwight catches her upper arm, protected by the layer of her leather jacket. She hates that it grounds her. She hates that the world only exists to her through a film of leather gloves. She hates that they’ve somehow looped her into worrying about a Crocker and she hates that she’s still here _arguing_ instead of long gone.

“I would be,” Dwight promises, low and serious. “If it were you, I’d be here.”

The anger drains out of her, replaced with an exhausted, exasperated resignation. She steps out of his grip and straightens her jacket. “I know,” she sighs. She levels Nathan and Audrey with a look. “If Emilia says no,” she asks, “what then?”

Audrey stares down at her hands. “Then, we—find another way.”

Jordan isn’t entirely sure she believes it, but it’s the answer she wanted and for now she’ll accept it. Privately, she makes the decision to keep a closer eye on them.

With the barn getting closer, she can’t afford to let things go off the rails. If that means helping them save Duke fucking Crocker? So be it.

“I can get you Emilia Flores,” she says, careful and caustic, “but if you strongarm her into this, I’ll kill you my damn self.”

* * *

**DUKE**

The Holloway house is wrong. Duke doesn’t know how else to put it. Not that he was particularly familiar with it before. He knew it as a feature of the scenery: a place rife with ghost stories and urban legends, but that was always too well boarded up to sneak into. Now, it looks—crooked, maybe. Like an ill-fitting puzzle piece that’s been jammed into the landscape around it. Like it’s sitting on top of reality instead of within it.

It unnerves him.

“Does it look—weird to you?” He asks as Dwight circles to the back of his truck.

Dwight pulls a prybar from the truck bed. “It’s a trouble,” Dwight says, although he sounds less sure of himself than Duke can ever remember him sounding. “Let’s just expect the worse.”

For all that Dwight took the news of not being real like a champ, for all that he jumped at the opportunity to throw himself into the line of fire if it meant finding the truth, Duke can see how it weighs on him. He goes stone-faced and stiff. Resigned. Duke doesn’t know much about war, but he wonders if the man in front of him is less Dwight the cleaner and more Dwight the soldier.

If they fix this, Duke’s going to miss him.

The realization lands like a blow to the chest.

Not just Dwight, either. But there’s no time to say his goodbyes. No one to say them to, either. Not technically. Not really. This whole place is nothing but a photocopy held together by a trouble.

And yet.

He thinks of the charcoal grey paint in the living room of Nathan’s house. He thinks of photographs on the wall of the Second Chance. He thinks of all that food in the fridge versus a childhood spent motherless and hungry. For just a moment, the ache seems truly bottomless.

“You getting cold feet?” Dwight asks, snapping him from his thoughts.

Duke shakes his head, swinging the passenger door shut. “No way,” he says.

They don’t really have a plan. They approach the house carefully, but the place stays silent, still, and empty. Whatever noises or lights Angela talked about seeing are nowhere to be found. Just an old, condemned building, boarded up and deteriorating.

Half the porch has given way to wood rot. What remains groans under the weight of their feet.

“Ready?” Dwight asks him.

“Are you?” He levels back.

Dwight answers by levering his weight against the plank of wood barring the door, and it barely so much as creaks under the pressure—which seems impossible. A weather-battered two-by-four shouldn’t be any match for Sasquatch. Duke grabs the last few inches of the pry bar, adding his own strength to Dwight’s. The wood strains against the screws holding it in place, but nothing gives.

“Okay, that’s weird,” Dwight mumbles.

“Definitely weird,” Duke echoes.

Dwight moves carefully along the porch to look for another way in. Duke means to follow him, but when he reaches out to run his hand curiously along the supernaturally resilient wooden plank barring the door, the thing crumbles to sawdust in his hands.

Meeting Dwight’s startled expression with one of his own, Duke squeaks, “Oh, I don’t like that.”

“Convenient, I guess,” Dwight offers, although he looks just as spooked as Duke feels.

“Yeah,” Duke agrees, “That’s what I don’t like about it.”

The door creaks open like something out of a horror movie, squealing on its hinges. Hardly any light makes it past the shuddered windows and into the house. A single beam of illumination runs from the front door into the belly of the thing, soon to be swallowed up by shadows that seem too deep, too alive.

In the center of it, just past where the last of the light touches, stands a woman.

He’d know her anywhere.

“Audrey?” Duke asks, but he understands already that it isn’t. Not really. She looks the same kind of wrong as the rest of the house.

Silhouetted, she makes no move to step further into the light.

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” she says, her voice calm and smooth and strange. Like someone else speaking with her mouth—her voice, but not in a way he’s ever heard her use it.

“Who are you?” He asks. His voice echoes tinny into the dark, like the house is much, much bigger than it ought to be.

The room seems to stutter. The dimensions of it shift, suddenly too long, suddenly too narrow, suddenly too tall, before snapping back to the way it was before, all in an instant—all between blinks like some kind of stop-motion funhouse mirror. Duke’s stomach lurches.

Audrey—not Audrey—ignores his question. “If you turn around,” she tells him, “you can still have your happy ending.”

* * *

**AUDREY**

The Gull sits quiet and dark, nothing but a silhouette against the coastline. Audrey wonders if the temporary has gone back to Nathan’s house or if he’s found some other way to keep busy. She can’t imagine what she would do in his place. In some ways, they have so much in common.

She wishes they could go back in time and un-tell him. It didn’t do them any good in the long run, anyway. He couldn’t help them. All they managed to accomplish was breaking something fundamental inside of him—the cornerstone holding his illusion together. They left him alone and unmoored.

Nathan shuts off the Bronco and starts to unbuckle his seatbelt, but she stops him with an arm across his chest. “I don’t think anyone else should go in,” she says.

“Why?” He asks, searching her expression. She can see the anxiety holding him taut even if he can’t feel it in his own muscles.

She reaches out to lace their fingers together. “We know the trouble won’t affect me. I just don’t want to risk it hitting anybody else.” She squeezes his hand. “Especially not you.”

Nathan looks primed to argue. He stares down at their joined hands. “If something goes wrong—” He starts, but she interrupts him.

“If something goes wrong,” she says, “you’ll be right out here.” She offers him a soft smile. “I need you to trust me.”

“I trust you,” he says. “’Course I do.”

Tipping forward, she presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “For luck,” she teases.

He cradles her face in gentle hands and drags her back in for another kiss, one that feels too heavy, too loaded, too full of the things they’re still learning how to say.

“If it doesn’t work, come get me before you try anything else,” he says, forehead pressed to hers.

“I promise,” she whispers.

She meets Dwight and Jordan on the balcony, both of them lit in the yellow of the porchlight. Moths flutter around the bulbs, casting strange and undulating shadows over their faces.

“We filled her in,” Jordan says, her arms crossed as she leans against the railing. “She’s onboard.”

Audrey tucks her hands into her pockets. She nods down at the Bronco. “You guys should go wait with Nathan, give us a little space.”

“Why?” Jordan asks, eyes narrowed.

Audrey rolls her eyes. “In case it—I don’t know, ricochets,” she snaps.

Much as Jordan has frustrated her every step of the way, Audrey can’t blame her for her distrust. Hell, part of her admires it: the way Jordan’s ready to fight tooth and nail for the troubled. She relaxes with a sigh.

“The plan’s still the same,” Audrey promises. “I just don’t want anyone else getting swept up in it.”

Dwight’s squeezes her shoulder. “Be careful,” he says, offering her a reassuring smile. “Yell if you need us.”

Audrey grins. “Oh, I will. Don’t worry.”

“I won’t,” Jordan counters, but strangely there’s something almost fond underneath the barb. Audrey grins at her and after a moment spent staring back, Jordan shakes her head and starts down the stairs.

Inside, Emilia sits uncomfortably on the edge of the couch. She startles when Audrey comes in. Plucking at the hem of her shirt, she asks, “Is this gonna take long? I’m in such deep shit if my moms realize I’m gone.”

Audrey sits down next to her. “I know,” she says, voice gentle. “Thank you for this.”

Looking her up and down, Emilia asks, “Are you sure you won’t disappear?”

She nods. “I promise.”

Emilia squares her shoulders and tucks her curls behind her ear. “Okay,” she puffs, sitting up straighter. “Whenever you’re ready, I guess.”

Audrey counts her breaths. In for eight. Hold for four. Out for eight. Just like Duke showed her. She imagines him: the man she first met on the deck of his boat and all the versions of himself he’s grown into in the time since then. The man who fought for Haven even when he pretended he didn’t want to. The man who quietly and unresentfully gave up so much to keep the people around him safe. The man who could talk his way out of anything.

The man who smiled at her with that warm and private smile. Who looked at her like she was not a copy. Who looked at her like she hung every star in the sky and then some.

She imagines him whole. Safe.

Home.

Closing her eyes, her voice rings sure and steady when she says, “I wish we had the real Duke back.”

* * *

**DUKE**

“Turn around, Duke,” she purrs again from her place in the shadows, with her voice that sounds like Audrey’s but isn’t.

“No,” Duke murmurs warily. He takes a hesitant step into the house. “No, I don’t think I will, thanks.”

The house seems to glitch—like a filter of visual noise thrown over the top. No matter how much he blinks or rubs his eyes, the room refuses to stay in focus. The harder he looks, the stranger it becomes. Duke remembers the decaying porch and has the vivid, nonsensical thought that the rot isn’t in the house, it _is_ the house.

The room seems to bend and his head bends with it. He has to fight to remember what he’s doing here in the first place, why they went so out of their way to get inside this dark, empty little nothing of a room.

“Squatch, are you seeing this?” Duke asks. He turns over his shoulder to find Dwight in the doorway staring wide-eyed and motionless, his eyes rolled back in his head. All at once, Duke’s brain catches up to him. He remembers why they’re there, what they’re doing. But a part of him wishes he hadn’t.

Just because it isn’t real doesn’t mean it can’t hurt him. The troubles have proved that over and over.

This time, when the not-Audrey speaks, Dwight speaks with her—an uncanny, unnatural syncopation that crawls under his skin like a ghost story.

“Turn around, Duke,” they drone, “Forget this house.”

“What the hell is this place?” He asks. Dread wraps its icy hands around his spine. “Where am I?”

“You’re exactly where you want to be, Duke,” they tell him.

Duke knows fear. Fear carved out the direction of his life like a river through a canyon—sure and winding and deep. Duke’s faced fears and he’s run from them, but never in his life has he known a chill quite like this. The thing that sounds like Audrey but isn’t, the photocopy town that catches the smallest of details but somehow misprints the important parts, the house that isn’t a house at all but instead a mouth, a hunger, a yawning emptiness.

“Don’t you remember?” They ask him in unison. “This is the life you wanted.”

“I want out!” He barks. Panic—slick and cold and cloying—crawls up his throat and into his mouth until he feels like he’s choking on it. “I want the real Haven! I want to go back to my friends!”

Not-Audrey quirks her head; in the dark, he can only make out the shift in the shape of her. Her face remains nothing but an inky silhouette.

“Why?” She asks, her voice no longer dueted.

Behind him, he hears Dwight slump heavily to the floor. He wants to turn around, to check on Dwight, but he feels glued to the spot in a way that isn’t entirely the result of fear. There’s something physical to it. A weight. An exhaustion. A pressure.

“What do you mean ‘why’?” He asks. His words slur together.

“Why?” She asks again.

The wood panels of the floor ripple like scales on snake. For the first time in fifteen years, Duke feels seasick.

“Were they good to you?” She asks. She steps forward but gets no closer. The entryway stretches backwards. The shadows span out into forever. “Were you happy?”

Disorientation sets in like a bad high. The contents of his brain go jumbled, incoherent. When he reaches for a memory, he pulls back the wrong thing. The life of the false reality and the life from before it become harder to pry apart. He remembers Nathan with a gun in his hands, remembers Audrey staring up at him with fear in her eyes, remembers an aching kind of loneliness and empty bottles of whiskey.

“Did they love you, Duke?” She asks. The walls don’t sit at the right angle, anymore. They loom inwards. “Aren’t you sick of begging to be loved?”

“They—they’re my friends,” he stutters, desperately trying to cling to the same stubborn defiance that brought him this far.

When she smiles, he’d swear he can see her teeth glint in the low light. “Haven’t things been so much easier since you got here? Haven’t you felt so much more at home?”

“No,” Duke slurs. He grabs hold of the word, digs his heels in. “ _No_. It doesn’t _mean_ anything.” A white haze pushes in around the edges of his vision. It seems to come from everywhere, to leak through the very floorboards: this blinding light that doesn’t go away when he closes his eyes. “No one here _loves_ me, they aren’t fucking real!”

“I love you, Duke,” a chorus of voices behind him echo all at once.

Duke’s heart rabbits up into his mouth.

He turns to find a collection of familiar faces lined up behind him. Nathan. Angela. Dwight. Evi. Julia. Bill. Geoff. Meg. Vanessa. They all stand with perfect, rigid posture: a row of dolls on a shelf. They wear blank, pleasant expressions. Maybe if the situation were different, maybe if they weren’t carved out of the shadows, backlit by the daylight flooding through the narrow doorway, maybe if it weren’t for the dust motes and the cobwebs and crooked walls, maybe they’d look warm and safe: a line of loved ones welcoming him home.

He stumbles backwards, into the dark, toward the not-Audrey. She catches him in the moment before he’d have crashed into her chest. Her hands are cold.

No—cold is the wrong word. They aren’t anything. They are an absence, the emptiness left behind where something once was. She is a blank space: the whistle of wind through an old house, the wet drip of a dark and hollow nothing. Her hands are only cold in that they take the place of warmth and give nothing back.

“I know you’re scared,” she murmurs—calm and placating and honeyed, like before. “You’ve gone poking around the empty places, asking the wrong kinds of questions.” She pushes him toward the front door, toward the row of dolls that look like his friends and their open palms and their empty expressions. “Look how bright it is, out there, Duke. Look how beautiful. Leave the dark, ugly things unbothered.”

It is bright. Too bright. The room that once seemed so impossibly dim swells with light. The glow pulses in towards the center until the structure of the building goes gooey and mercurial.

The bottom drops out of the room, but Duke doesn’t fall. Instead, the walls lift up and fractal out in a silent explosion of wood and tile and brick. It hovers in the air around them, the smoke of pulverized drywall creating a haze that blots of the rest of the town from sight.

The others vanished with the light or were swallowed by it. Now, it’s only Duke and the not-Audrey. Without the shadows to hide in, he can see her.

He braces for a monster—some kind of eldritch horror slapped together in the vague shape of the woman he loves.

The thing in front of him turns out to be much more frightening than that.

It wears Audrey’s face. It looks no less human than any of the other fakes Duke’s interacted with in his time here. Her eyes don’t roll in her head, she makes no guttural sounds, no unnatural movements. She looks like Audrey. But there’s a calm, calculated, ravenous evil behind her eyes. When she grins, it makes his stomach turn.

“Didn’t work, huh?” She comments idly, casting an amused glance at the slow-motion demolition of the building around them. “Damn, and I really thought the whole hivemind thing was a nice touch, too.”

Sighing heavily, she rolls her eyes. “Mother always said you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but I guess some poor assholes are just addicted to the nasty shit.” She taps her fingers against her chin in a performative mockery of a thoughtful gesture.

He tries to speak, but finds his voice trapped in his throat. (He can’t blame the supernatural for that one. That’s nothing but pure, icy terror.)

“You wanted something _real_ , right?” She levels him with a wild grin: a feral animal baring its teeth. She snaps her fingers. “Nathan, darling, could you help me with a demonstration?”

It’s not that Nathan appears so much that it’s as though he had always been there, as though he were out of focus in the photograph of Duke’s thoughts and snapped suddenly in to picture. When he does, the warm, gentle affection of the last few days is replaced with a frothing, incoherent rage.

“What did you do to Audrey?” Nathan snarls. He catches Duke by the throat and the Guard tattoo materializes into place on his forearm.

Duke hadn’t even noticed it was gone until now.

He claws at Nathan’s hands, his arms, but Nathan doesn’t react. Of course, he doesn’t. He can’t feel. Why did Duke forget he couldn’t feel? He wheezes a thin stream of air into his lungs. Thrashing in Nathan’s grip feels like fighting against a freight train. Nothing gives. Nathan stands stiff and seething and impossibly strong.

The not-Audrey watches them with a patient and fascinated glee. “Now, is that the reality you _want_ , Duke?” She singsongs. “The life you came from is ugly.”

One by one, the others fill back in along the edges of his vision. They wear the same empty, cheerful, doll-like expressions as before. It looks worse in the daylight.

“After all,” the not-Audrey continues, sounding almost bored. “Geoff, dead.”

Geoff drops like a puppet with its strings cut.

She counts them off on her fingers. “Evi, dead.”

Evi sinks like a stone.

“Vanessa, dead.”

Vanessa’s pitches forward onto the pavement.

“Bill. Meg. Julia,” the not-Audrey hums, “They all left you behind.”

The three of them vanish—nothing but smoke.

“And Angela,” her voice curls saccharine, “this mother who loves you. Who is she out there? A stranger? Does she even exist?” She laughs and the sound carves through him. “You haven’t forgotten your real mother, have you?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Duke sees Angela change shape—stretch taller, thinner, her white hair winding into dark curls. He doesn’t look. He can’t. Nauseous, he stares up at Nathan. Nathan, who looks at him and yet doesn’t seem to see him.

“Look at her, Duke,” the not-Audrey barks, but he ignores her.

“Nate—” He chokes. He reaches out to grip the collar of Nathan’s shirt. His arms feel so heavy.

The not-Audrey tuts disapprovingly. “He almost killed you, Duke,” she reminds him.

The room—if it could even be called that anymore—starts to spin. “He wouldn’t have,” Duke whispers, barely any air behind the words.

“He wanted to.” She prowls closer, peering at him over Nathan’s shoulder. “Duke, sweetheart, they haven’t even noticed you’re gone. They don’t care. Isn’t this better? Isn’t this what you wanted?”

The overwhelming brightness starts to dim. Duke fights for air, but nothing makes it into his lungs. His knees start to buckle. His grip weakens. His eyes flutter in a losing battle to stay open.

He gasps out a strangled, “No.”

The world—

Cracks.

Fractures, like a window. Like a mirror. The pieces don’t fit together correctly. His vision Picassos. Nathan lets go of his throat—or, he doesn’t let go, but he’s suddenly no longer attached to his hands. Physics cease to mean anything. Reality holds itself together on a shoestring.

“What?” The not-Audrey snarls, even as she fractals and splinters. “This was _your_ wish! It’s what you wanted!”

Panting for breath, Duke shakes his head. He drops to his knees, shivering and heaving, nauseous and barely awake. “ _No_ ,” he says again, louder this time. “I don’t want this.” He curls around his knees, hands buried in his hair like a child cowering from a nightmare. His voice cracks on a scream when he urges, “This isn’t what I want!”

Everything shatters. It falls apart piece by piece, fading into a darkness so absolute, it seems bottomless.

The not-Audrey clings to what’s left of the world, even as her island grows smaller and smaller. She crawls towards him, falling in and out of focus like static in an old recording. Knelt in front of him, she cradles his face in her hands.

“Who are you?” He asks, terrified of the coldness he finds in her eyes.

“I’m just a copy, Duke. A ghost in the machine.” She strokes his cheek with her thumb. “You haven’t met me, yet. But I’d like to think you’re going to.”

“Why do you look like Audrey?” He whispers. There’s almost nothing left, now. The town, the Holloway house, the sky itself—everything’s gone dark.

“Oh Duke,” she purrs, cocking her head with a wry grin. “I don’t look like Audrey. Audrey looks like me.”

Duke isn’t really certain whether he passes out or the void simply swallows everything that was left; the darkness is complete, either way.


	8. the ghosts that keep me awake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A floating or a falling.

**DUKE**

(Duke can see the front door, but he can’t reach it.)

He comes to slowly. Compared to the blinding light of the half-exploded Holloway house, the sudden dim of his new surroundings becomes a bottomless dark. His head spins with a roiling nausea. Memories filter through in flashes: the not-Audrey’s hollow hands on his face, the fissures cracking the surface of reality, and then nothing. A falling, or a floating.

The wood floor feels cool under his cheek. The idea of lying there a moment longer—of closing his eyes and succumbing to a few more minutes of sleep—tempts his half-awake mind. He’s so tired. His body aches. He wants—

He wants to sleep. He wants to drift back into the comfortable unawareness between existences. He—

No.

No, he wants to _leave_.

A flood of that cloying, terrified desperation wells up and jolts him awake. He forces himself up on shaking arms only to crash back into the floor when his elbows give out underneath him, knocking his chin hard enough to see stars.

“Fuck,” he mumbles, locking his elbows when he finally manages to lever himself as far as hands and knees. Settling back onto his haunches, he struggles to get his bearings.

It’s dark. Even as his eyes adjust, he struggles to make out anything more than the vague, blocky shapes of nondescript furniture. The air is balmy and still, choked with dust. Several feet away from him, dim yellow streetlight filters into the house in tiny, mismatched stripes—too haphazard and inconsistent to be blinds.

Boards, he realizes. There are boards on the windows.

Duke slams his hand against the floor with a hoarse, desperate shout. His own voice feels strange and strangled—disused. The sound echoes through the space, betraying how huge it truly is beyond the inky reaches of the shadows.

It’s the Holloway house.

He’s still inside the Holloway house. None of it mattered.

Fresh, unfettered panic hits him like a freight train. He scrambles backwards towards a wall, helplessly scanning the room, searching the shadows for signs of another body—for that _thing_ wearing Audrey’s face.

She’s here. He knows she is. She has to be.

His voice buckles beneath him when he asks, “Where are you?” into the dark. Nothing answers. Silence takes up physical space in the room, pushes down on him in a way that’s oppressive and claustrophobic.

“ _Answer me_ ,” he snarls, even if it comes out pitiful and pinched—like a cornered animal trying to make itself tall.

In a moment of despair, he entertains the idea that he might be well and truly alone. Maybe he broke the dream entirely. Maybe he really did come to the wrong place, ask the wrong questions, and now he’s trapped in a world that isn’t real with nothing but this freakshow house and the dark.

“Please,” he whispers, well beyond pride.

Halfway down the hall behind him, an old landline phone shakes from its cradle and smashes to the floor. He nearly jumps out of his own skin, scrabbling up the wall and to his feet while his heart thunders in his chest. The whine of the dial tone vibrates his skull.

Trying to stamp out his fear like a stubborn flame, he presses himself against the wall and barks, “Show your face!”

As if in answer, all the lights in the house flick on all at once. An agonizing flood of light hits his eyes like a flashbang. The buzz of old bulbs seems impossibly loud. He throws his arm over his eyes with a curse. He’s exposed, like this. A sitting duck. An easy target. He flails his other fist in a useless haymaker that blows through the open air at nothing while he struggles, desperately, to see again.

Everything feels too big, too bright. For someone who prides himself on keeping it together in high-stress situations, Duke feels precariously ready to snap.

He has, to be perfectly honest, reached his limit on emotional torment and existential horror for the week. Maybe the month.

To his right, the house creaks. Blinking against the glare, he whips around. He expects to find a small, familiar shape stalking down the hallway towards him—expects that hungry, haunting grin. But the hall remains empty, colored sickly yellow by the light.

And the front door looks further away than it did a second ago.

Another wave of dread, but this time it brings with it an exhausted, pathetic sort of resignation.

“Not this again,” he all but begs. But by now, he knows that no one is listening.

The house moves differently than it did when the not-Audrey stood with him inside of it. Unlike the surrealist contortions from before, its shape shifts in stiffer, more predictable ways. The floorboards multiply forward, the hall narrows to a point. But the walls stay firmly upright and attached to the ground. The ceiling doesn’t shatter.

Unfortunately, the house’s sudden respect for the laws of time and space doesn’t get him any closer to a way out. In fact, given the way the hall yawns deeper ahead of him, it only gets him further from one.

Hand shielding his eyes from the light, Duke stumbles in the direction of the front door. Some of the aches and disorientation have finally let go of him, leaving his body feeling more his own. But he carries in him a heaviness. A weariness that runs deeper than sleep deprivation, deeper than pain: something less like exhaustion at all and more like the crash of a comedown after ecstasy.

And god, he certainly feels doped up. Everything about the last 24 hours has him unsteady and reeling and it just keeps on going.

He can see the front door. But he can’t reach it.

Gritting his teeth, he asks, “A never-ending hallway?” He pushes further along the treadmill of identical wallpaper. “Kinda cliché, don’t you think?”

The phone dangling off its receiver starts blaring a busy signal. The noise fills the space until he can barely think around it.

(A horrible, shameful little canker on his heart secretly wishes that _she_ was here. At least then the horror would mean something. At least then he wouldn’t be so utterly alone.)

* * *

**AUDREY**

Audrey doesn’t know what she expected, exactly. Maybe some a chime, a spark, a poof of fairy dust. _Something_. She peeks one eye open and finds Emilia staring back at her with a worried expression on her face. Anxiety drops like a stone through her stomach.

“Did it work?” Audrey asks, but she already knows the answer.

Glancing down at her lap, Emilia shakes her head. “I don’t think so.” She wrings the hem of her shirt between her hands. “Last time, with Duke, there was a—kick. I felt it.”

Audrey tries to keep the disappointment at bay. This was always a possibility. She knew that. They all knew that.

“And this time?” She asks.

“Nothing,” Emilia answers.

This was always a gamble. Audrey’s immunity guaranteed her safety, but in the end it rendered the whole venture useless. She allows herself a short, private moment of grief before schooling her features into something calm and acceptable. She swallows the despair. Reaching out, she lays a hand on Emilia’s knee.

“Thank you for trying,” she urges. Her voice sways underneath her.

“I’m sorry,” Emilia says. She’s so young. Guilt twists her expression. “I really wanted to help you get your friend back. I’m sorry that I—”

“Hey,” Audrey interrupts her. By some miracle, she manages a smile. “We are not giving up yet, okay? This isn’t your fault. We’ll just—have to keep thinking.” Nodding in the direction of the door, she gets to her feet. “C’mon. Let’s get you home.”

Nathan meets them at the bottom of the stairs, half-electric with hope. He catches her by the shoulders as she hits the last step. “Did it work?” He rushes to ask, searching her expression.

Audrey hates to break his heart. She shrinks in his hands, shaking her head when words seem to fail her.

“Figures,” Jordan comments from her place leaned against Dwight’s truck.

She’s right. But the _I told you so_ feels like salt in the wound. Dwight whispers something to her that makes her roll her eyes, but she keeps any further remarks to herself.

Dwight, always a man of action, offers, “We’ll take Emilia home.” It helps a little to focus on the things they can _do_ instead of the ways all their plans keep going wrong.

“We’ll follow behind,” Audrey decides. “We need to talk about next steps.”

“It’s the middle of the night,” Jordan grouses, although it comes out less hostile than Audrey expects. “Can’t we pick this up in the morning?” After a moment, Jordan relents. She opens the passenger door for Emilia and mutters, “When do you people sleep?” before dropping it.

The truth is, they’re all holding it together based on pure forward momentum. Nobody—not even Dwight, it seems—is willing to let go of that.

The whole street is quiet when they reach the Flores house. This late, the porch lights are all turned off, the road lit only by the sparse, intermittent yellow of the streetlamps. A single window of the Flores house glows with light. Audrey hopes they simply forgot to turn it off.

Dwight puts his truck in park on the side of the road just before the Flores’s driveway. Nathan pulls to a stop right behind him.

“Do you think there’s anything she can do?” Nathan asks as the car idles.

Audrey sighs. The longer this goes on, the less room she has for hope. “You remember what she said?” She asks. “Only one person ever made it back.” Those words have been rolling around Audrey’s head for days.

Nathan stares at the steering wheel. He forces a smile that doesn’t fit on his face. “We’ve pulled off crazier shit than this,” he says.

A tap on her window startles Audrey from whatever she might have said next. She whips around to find Emilia standing outside her door.

“I’m really sorry,” Emilia rushes to say almost before Audrey has the window down. “I wish—” She comes to a sudden stop, only to stutter out a laugh at her own choice of words. Running a hand through her hair, she chews her lip. “I wanted it to work.” She rocks on her heels. “That’s, uh—that’s all I wanted to say.”

Audrey paints on a smile much more convincing than the one Nathan managed. “We’re not giving up on him,” she promises.

Despite having only spoken for hardly fifteen minutes, Audrey remembers with shocking clarity the decades of guilt Emilia’s mother seemed to still carry with her. No matter what happens with Duke, she won’t let Emilia bear the weight of it.

“If there’s anything else I can do,” Emilia offers—overeager in a way that hurts to look at, just a little—“Let me know. I want to help.”

“Thank you,” Audrey says. “We—”

She’s interrupted by the loud bang of the Flores’s front door swinging shut.

“What the _fuck_ is this?” Vivian snarls as she storms into the driveway. Her wife, Andrea, follows behind her—quieter, but no less furious. They both wear a mismatched combination of pajamas and jeans and ill-suited shoes, as though they threw on clothes in a hurry.

Turns out Emilia’s stealthy return was just a few minutes to late.

Dwight and Jordan both step out of their truck before Audrey and Nathan gather their faculties enough to do the same.

“Apologies, Mrs. Flores,” Dwight starts in that diplomatic way of his.

“ _Apologies_?” Vivian echoes in disbelief. “This is my _family_.” She seems utterly unphased by the way he towers over her. Stepping right into his space, she tips her head back to meet his gaze with a ferocious intensity strong enough to make even Jordan waver.

While Vivian froths and curses, Andrea rushes to Emilia, turning her head in her hands as if looking her over for _wounds_. On the one hand, Audrey can’t blame her. On the other, she can’t help but feel a little insulted.

“The Guard is supposed to protect us,” Vivian barks, “not use us for your—whatever the hell this is.”

One hand on Emilia’s shoulder, Andrea keeps her tone measured, but there’s an icy anger just beneath the surface when she says, “If you wanted something, you could have come to us in the morning. Not stolen our daughter in the middle of the night.”

“All due respect, ma’am,” Nathan starts and Audrey could kick him. Never a good way to start a sentence, and god knows the man struggles when it comes to respect. “But she’s an adult. We didn’t _steal_ anybody.”

Audrey hisses a quiet and pointed, “ _Nathan_ ,” but the damage is already done.

“He’s right,” Emilia cuts in, before Vivian and Andrea have a chance to turn their ire on Nathan. She steps out of Andrea’s hold, toward Vivian. “I wanted to go. I wanted to help.”

Vivian’s focused rage blooms and scatters like dandelion seeds—gone up in a puff of flustered frustration. “There is no helping!” She argues. “There’s only damage control.” She steps away from Dwight to address her daughter. “You’re putting people in danger every single time you leave this house!”

Finally, what’s left of the irritation gives way to something softer—closer to fear. Her expression cracks, dipping into a helplessness that makes her look suddenly small.

“I know it’s terrible,” Vivian urges. She reaches for her daughter. “I hate it, too. But this is the only way to keep everyone safe.” She brushes Emilia’s curls from her face. “Including you.”

Emilia pushes forward. “You’d have done it,” she argues. “If you could’ve gotten Mr. Pelletier back, you would have.”

Vivian stares back at her daughter like she’s trying to wrestle with a hard truth. Audrey can’t imagine exactly how she must be feeling, but so much of it shows on her face: how she wishes Emilia were right, how a part of her—maybe all of her—doesn’t truly believe there’s any undoing the damage caused by their trouble.

Audrey hopes to any god who’s listening that Vivian’s wrong.

Off to her left, Dwight’s phone goes off. He excuses himself with an awkward, curt nod and steps behind his truck to answer it. From this distance, Audrey can hear the quiet murmur of his voice but can’t make out the words.

The Floreses just ignore him—or Vivian and Emilia ignore him. Andrea casts him a withering glare and keeps one eye on him as though expecting the worst. For all the gentleness of their first encounter, Audrey’s starting to realize that Andrea has more fire to her than maybe even Gloria gave her credit for.

Vivian lets out a heavy, exhausted sigh and wraps her arms around her daughter’s neck. “You can’t just disappear like that,” she says.

“You scared us,” Andrea agrees, laying a hand on Emilia’s back. Her soft expression goes stony when she turns it on the rest of them. “And you. Gloria vouched for you.”

Audrey nods. A thread of guilt finally spikes its way past all the righteousness she’s kept herself propped up on. “We shouldn’t have gone over your heads,” Audrey offers. “We’re sorry. We’re just—we’re on a time limit.”

“Easier to ask forgiveness than permission,” Nathan mumbles and Audrey resists the urge to elbow him.

“You’re right, Mrs. Flores,” Jordan interrupts, startling Audrey and Nathan both. If anything, Audrey would have expected she’d say out of this conversation. After all, they dragged her into this plan in the first place; no one could have blamed her if she just stepped back and let them take the brunt of the fallout.

“This isn’t what the Guard is for,” Jordan continues. She wears a serious, conflicted look on her face—like she’s grappling with something far beyond this simple conversation. “What we did was out of line. It won’t happen again.”

Dwight rounds the side of the truck in a hurry, bursting the tension of the moment. “Something big’s going down at the Holloway house,” he tells them, all business. He nods at the Floreses. “I’m sorry, but we need to go.”

* * *

**DUKE**

Somewhere along the line, the hallway changes beyond recognition. The windows get swallowed up into the drywall or there’s a sudden, sharp right angle where there wasn’t one before. The buzz from the florescent bulbs swells and swells and swells until they burst and pop and shatter into a rain of sparks.

And then nothing. A dark without windows, unbroken by the glow of streetlamps or even the latent ghostly dim of a bulb going out. Impossible, half-alive darkness.

Duke gropes along the line of the wall while the house groans, creaks, and shudders around him. In the ink black, it becomes labyrinthine and impossible. This hall might as well be never-ending. It’s smooth and cold and infinite under his hands.

He doesn’t know how long he stays in the dark, shuffling forward through house he can’t see or understand. It goes on long enough that he starts to feel helpless.

It’s poetic, honestly, for him to wrestle free from one trouble only to wind up eaten by some dilapidated, garishly wallpapered monsterhouse.

When the noises first start, Duke has no reason to believe them any different from the crunching, scraping, rattling of the shifting hallway. When the voices begin to filter in, Duke writes them off first as some side effect of the settling of the house. When they become too loud to confuse for ambient noise, he assumes it’s a trick—the same way whatever it was knocked the phone off the hook and blew all the light fixtures.

Voices in the dark. A nice touch.

But then a bang. And another, and another. A boot connecting with a door. He remembers the impossible strength of the two-by-four blocking the door to the Holloway house in the dream—or whatever it was. The other Haven. He remembers _Dwight_ pulling and pulling and the thing not moving an inch.

“It won’t work,” he puffs in a weak rasp of a laugh, shaking his head and sinking against the wallpaper until his legs buckle him to the floor. Another bang.

And then light. So much fucking light. Yellow streetlight. Blue beams of flashlights cutting through the dark like flaming goddamn swords. He covers his face, unsure—in the chaos of it all—if he’s being rescued or kidnapped.

“Duke?”

A familiar voice. Too familiar. Ice floods his veins.

It’s her. It’s that thing that looks like Audrey playing a trick on him. He never got out. He never came home. She just found a new, uglier, subtler way to fuck with his head.

It’s punishment for wanting to leave her little playground.

“Duke, thank god,” she gasps. She drops heavily to her knees beside him. He’s frozen somewhere between dread and hope, unmoving when she throws her arms around him.

She presses her forehead against his, buries a hand in the hair at the nape of his neck and holds him.

Her hands are warm. They’re warm. Not the horrible, empty nothing of the not-Audrey.

Which means he made it.

Oh fuck, he made it.

Before he can fully process the idea, the thundering of his heart gets drowned out by Dwight’s urgent, “We need to get out of here, _now_.”

Several pairs of hands lever him upwards. With the swell of light still too much for him, he can’t see who they belong to, but all of them together heave him to his feet like he weighs nothing. He staggers forward, pushed and pulled and dragged into the open air. He focuses on the sensation of Audrey’s hand in his, on the familiar murmur of her voice as she promises him it’s going to be alright.

As soon as his feet hit the grass lawn outside the Holloway house, his knees give out from under him. He tries to blink against the sting of light from the streetlamp above them, but there’s a wetness behind his eyes that has nothing to do with his time in the dark.

Duke sucks in a gasp that goes in wrong—a wet, weak sound that rattles through his chest. Someone—more than one someones, maybe—step back as though burned. But Audrey’s hands push the hair from his face, cradle his jaw. And Nathan—of course it’s Nathan, of course he knows that it’s Nathan—presses up behind him as if to prop him upright.

If they’d just let go of him, if they just wouldn’t _look_ at him, this would pass. It’s nothing but leftover adrenaline and exhaustion. It’s nothing, it’s—

“We’ve got you,” Audrey promises. She fits in beside him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

Nathan buries his nose in the hair at the nape of Duke’s neck. His hands are warm and clumsy where they settle on Duke’s stomach.

“You’re back,” Nathan murmurs up against his skin.

 _They haven’t even noticed you’re gone_ , the not-Audrey’s voice echoes in his ear. _They don’t care._

Duke hiccups out a strangled sound that lands too close to a sob. He drops his face into his hands and tries to remember how to count his breaths, but he can’t match his own rhythm. It’s mortifying. It’s pathetic. If they’d just leave him alone, he’d snap out of this.

But they don’t. They don’t leave. They don’t let go. Audrey rests her cheek against the crown of his head and runs her fingers through his hair. Nathan tucks his face in the crook of his shoulder, gripping the front of his shirt while Duke keeps on gasping pitiful, wheezing breaths.

“It’s okay, Duke,” Audrey whispers into his hair. “You’re home.”

Home.

He keeps expecting the rug to be ripped out from beneath him—keeps waiting for Audrey to turn sharp and smug and ravenous, for Nathan’s arms to wind around his neck and smother him. Waits for the earth itself to open up and eat him alive because nothing—absolutely nothing—in the past few hours has made any sense at all. Nothing has felt well and truly real for _days_ and it’s all too much.

It’s too goddamn much.

Duke curses softly into the cradle of his hands. He scrubs at his face, trying to will the tears to stop. As his eyes finally begin adjusting to the light, he catches sight of Dwight and a woman he’s never met standing a few feet away from his little spectacle, looking varying degrees of uncomfortable.

Nathan and Audrey both seem unbothered by their audience, but that only makes the whole ordeal stranger. He knows this isn’t the Haven he’s spent the last few days in, but for a moment it doesn’t feel like the one he left, either.

Something has changed. Something he can’t name or understand.

Dragging his hands over his face, Duke finally manages some semblance of composure. He sighs, shaking his head as if to clear it and balls his hands into fists to hide the way they shake. “Jesus, fuck, sorry.”

Embarrassment roils in his stomach as he untangles from Nathan and Audrey to lever himself to his feet. They seem almost reluctant to let him go—a curiosity he chalks up to shock.

Brushing himself off, he tries to ignore the sudden dizziness that accompanies getting to his feet. Spending hours in a house that doesn’t play by the laws of the universe, he figures, would be enough to give anybody vertigo.

A huge pair of hands steady his shoulders. He meets Dwight’s gaze and knows his own face looks red and swollen and pitiful, despite the unaffected veneer he keeps trying to paint over it. Dwight stares back without judgement. He squeezes Duke’s shoulders and Duke’s throat, just for a moment, goes perilously tight.

“Good to have you back,” Dwight says, damnably earnest.

Duke clears his throat and glances away. “Believe it or not, Squatch,” he says, awkward when he pats Dwight on the chest. “I’m pretty sure you’re half the reason I made it back at all. So, uh. Thanks for that.”

Dwight cocks his head, curiosity coloring his features. With a last, heartfelt pat to Duke’s shoulders, Dwight lets him go. “You’ll have to fill me in on the details when you’re back on your feet,” he says, all level and pragmatic and gentle. Duke’s chest constricts at the thought of the version of Dwight he left behind in that place and he hurries away before sentimentality can make an even bigger fool of him than he’s made of himself already.

(As he ducks into the passenger’s seat of the bronco, he sees the dark-haired woman smack Dwight across the chest with the back of her hand. Her voice muffled through the door, he’d _swear_ she mutters an exasperated, “Even fake you’s in love with him.” But there’s no way he heard it right. The noise of the engine roaring to life drowns out whatever Dwight have said in response, regardless.)

Nathan and Audrey talk at him on the ride home. He only half listens. His head feels full of cotton, his body sore and unfamiliar—as though it’s been lying vacant and disused in the time he’s been away, even though he’s sure he was firmly attached to it.

Some of the nuance of what they say glances off of him, but he catches the broad strokes, at least. He made a wish around a troubled teen and got _Twilight Zone_ d into some pocket dimension. Meanwhile, a trouble wearing his face filled in for him. Blah, blah, blah, angry parents, blah, blah, blah, terrible consequences, whatever.

He stares out the window. He feels bone weary in a way that casts a fog over everything. He just wants to be alone.

Or—no, he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to be alone at all. But he wishes he did, and he’s willing to cling to that stubborn impulse more than he’s willing to stoop low enough to actually ask for the company. He won’t let them pity him. He’ll be fine in the morning.

He’s always fine.

They drop him off at the marina at his request. He makes his goodbyes on autopilot before haunting his way onto his boat.

He hasn’t set foot on the Rouge in—well, it hasn’t even been a week, has it? And yet it feels so much longer. He’s missed her. She’s familiar and comfortable and—

Empty.

God, it’s lonely here. This place with only him in it. This boat full of only his things.

Duke forgoes changing out of his day clothes, forgoes food or a bath or all the other creature comforts of home. He ignores the fact that there’s only one toothbrush in his bathroom, only one set of shirts in his closet, only his own pair of pillows on the bed.

He blearily beelines for the kitchen, the cabinet over the sink, the expensive single malt scotch he’s been saving for a special occasion.

He climbed out of the back end of a wish, that’s probably special enough.

Uncorking the bottle, he grips it by the neck and lifts it in a mock toast. “To a moment of peace and quiet,” he decides.

As he brings the bottle to his lips, the not-Audrey’s words crawl into his ear, unbidden.

_Aren’t you sick of begging to be loved?_

He fought for this life. Tooth and nail. Lied and stole and sweat and bled for it. Maybe it is ugly, just like the monster said, but it’s his.

It’s real.

And that means something. (Fuck, it has to mean something.)

Before he can lift the bottle to his lips, he’s interrupted by a knock on his door. He abandons the bottle on the kitchen table. Slapping his face to wake himself up, he reorganizes his features into something resembling stable and functional before he opens the door.

The fact that it’s Nathan and Audrey on the other side somehow both shocks him and doesn’t surprise him at all. Who else would it have been? The two of them look twice as uncomfortable as he does, wearing nervousness like an itchy wool coat.

Duke raises an eyebrow at them, taking up space in the doorway. “You forget something?” He asks.

“Can we, uh—,” Audrey starts. She looks strangely bashful in a way he refuses to read any further into. “Can we stay a while?”

Rather than answer, he steps out of the way and gestures into the cabin. They both hover uselessly in the center of his kitchen, uncharacteristically uncomfortable.

“Jesus, sit down,” he gripes without any heat. “You’re making _me_ nervous.”

Retrieving three tumblers from his cabinet, he makes the executive decision that all of them could use a drink. They settle at the table, Audrey and Nathan on one side and Duke on the other. (And isn’t that how it always is, in the end? So begins the process of filing away all the meaningless, hopeful little _maybes_ inspired by that trouble-induced daydream he’s been living in.)

“You don’t need to babysit me,” he says conversationally as he pours their glasses and avoids looking them in the eye. “Pretty sure I’m not gonna disappear.”

“How do you feel?” Audrey asks, sidestepping his brush off.

He snorts a laugh as he hands her a glass. “Like I got scraped off the sidewalk with a spatula.” Far from being stingy, he’s filled each to half full. Audrey eyes the scotch with raised eyebrows, but doesn’t comment. Nathan lifts his glass in toast and they clink together first the lip, then the base the way they have since they were teenagers.

Slouching into the booth, Duke slings an arm over the back and takes a long drink. The scotch goes down hot and smoky. Wakes him up, calms him down. “How’d you guys find me, anyway?” He asks.

Nathan coughs around his first sip, although he does his best to cover it. Duke smiles against the rim of his glass.

“Dwight got a call about a bunch of noise at the Holloway house,” he answers.

Duke thinks of Angela calling in that same complaint inside of the wish and—for a moment—his chest sparks with hope so sharp and acute, it cleaves straight through him.

He buries the feeling. There lies nothing but heartbreak.

Shaking his head, Duke says, “I swear that place was fucking alive.”

Nathan nods. He sits awfully close to Audrey, Duke notices. Their shoulders touch. Duke watches the point of contact while an old, familiar jealousy stirs awake in his chest.

So, they patched things up. Good. That’s good.

“Dwight and Jordan are boarding it back up,” Nathan says.

Audrey confirms. “There’s definitely some kind of trouble involved,” she says.

“There better be,” Duke jokes with a sigh, “’Cause I am way too old to start believing in ghosts.”

Audrey props her cheek up on one hand and looks at him with a soft, cracked open expression. “It’s—it’s really good to have you back, Duke,” she murmurs. “The real you.”

 _Were they good to you?_ That sinister voice echoes in his head. _Were you happy?_

Staring down into his glass, Duke clears his throat before he dares use it to speak. “So,” he asks, aiming for casual, “How’d you know it wasn’t me?”

Nathan, buoyed by the finger or two of scotch he’s already drank, blurts an unself-conscious, “He was too happy.” It earns him an elbow to his ribs from Audrey.

“ _Nathan_ ,” she hisses, although a grin sneaks onto her face no matter how hard she tries to fight it.

Duke finds himself laughing—a shocked, bright, honest sound made warm by the booze. “Touché,” he chuckles, lifting his glass in the pantomime of a toast. Tipping it back, he savors the heady burn of it. “In his defense,” he adds as he sets his glass on the table, “He had plenty to be happy about.”

“What was it like?” Audrey asks carefully.

Duke wonders how he’s supposed to answer that. He wonders if he has any secrets left at all, after his doppelganger was set loose on Haven. He wonders, too, if he ought to be ashamed.

In the end, he’s too exhausted to bother.

“It was… weird,” he decides. He stares out a porthole on the other side of the cabin and watches the dark shimmer of the water so he doesn’t have to try and puzzle out their expressions. “Me and Bill ran the Second Chance together.” His voice goes soft—nearly gives out underneath him. He picks at his fingernails to try and distract from the lingering ache.

“I had a mom,” he murmurs. He aim’s for a chuckle, but lands just short of mirth. He swallows. “A good one.”

Burying that line of inquiry, he turns his attention to Nathan. “You could feel. Didn’t believe in the troubles at all. Thought the first go around was, uh—” He laughs. “Brain damage. From the sledding accident.”

He turns to Audrey. “And you were—I don’t know.” Shaking his head, he says, “It’s like the trouble… messed you up, when it copied you over. You had a lot of the—” He waves a hand. “ _Audrey Parker_ stuff wrong.”

Chewing her bottom lip in thought, Audrey casts a curious glance back and forth between Duke and Nathan. “Is it because I’m immune?” She asks, as if Duke would have the first idea why the troubles do goddamn anything. “Like—the trouble didn’t work right?”

“Maybe,” Duke offers with a shrug. He stares down at the countertop and tries to ignore the terror that accompanies his memory of the fake Holloway house.

“It’s not just that,” he adds. “There were two of you.”

Audrey perks up. “Lucy?”

Duke puffs an incredulous noise. He remembers Lucy Ripley. She was good to him. Kind and soft-spoken and patient. “Whoever she was,” he says, “she was _not_ Lucy Ripley.”

His unaffected façade must faulter, somehow. That, or Audrey just sees right through him the same way she always has. Either way, she reaches across the table to lay her hand over his. Instinctively—and maybe humiliatingly, too—he glances at Nathan the second her hand touches his.

He expects—something. An anger, a jealousy, an exasperation. Instead, Nathan meets his gaze with an uncharacteristic calmness. And nods.

Duke has no fucking idea what that’s supposed to mean.

In the end, he doesn’t go so far as flipping his hand over, but he does let their fingers tangle together on the tabletop. It grounds him, just a little.

“Are you okay?” Audrey asks.

Duke aims his chuckle at the table. “Can I, uh, get a raincheck on that one?” He jokes weakly. “I have had a very weird week full of people who didn’t technically exist. So. I think I’m probably doing about as well as can be expected.”

Nathan leans forward, elbows on the table, hands around his now half-empty glass. “How’d you get out?” He asks.

Audrey squeezes his fingers. “Emilia—the girl with the wish trouble—she said that you had to _want_ to leave.”

Duke snorts. “Oh, I wanted to leave, alright.”

“We made a wish on our end, but it didn’t work.” She glances at Nathan before asking, “What’d you do, in there? What… changed?”

Duke drums his fingertips along the side of his glass. “Honestly? I’m not sure.” By the time the wish spat him out, things had already gotten so surreal and twisted. He struggles to pinpoint the source of the fracture.

“It started with the Holloway house,” Duke explains. He’s certain of that much. “The wish didn’t copy it right. So, me and Dwight—” He grinds to a stop. “Me and the fake Dwight,” he corrects, even if it feels wrong and unkind to word it like that, “We went there to check it out. Things got—messy.”

“Define ‘messy’,” Nathan prompts—his brows furrowed into that signature frown that Duke tries so hard not to find endearing. He wears it better than the fake Nathan did, Duke thinks. It suits him.

“Like bad acid trip messy,” Duke says. “Like the whole wish was coming apart at the seams.” He nods to Audrey. “The other you was there, in the house. She tried to convince me to stay.”

Audrey screws up her face in thought.

Duke props his head on his free hand and basks in the simple joy of looking at her—the real her—her fingers warm around his. It’s a comforting anchor point: a reminder of where he is, who he’s with.

The wish had seemed real when he was inside of it but here, now, sitting across the table from the real deal?

It’s like the whole world’s in technicolor.

“That’s… weird,” Audrey muses. She sits upright in her seat and lets go of his hand.

(He retreats immediately—drops both hands into his lap where they’re no longer in danger of being touched by beautiful, well-meaning fools who have no concept of how badly it hurts him. How it teases the promise of a future he can’t ever have.)

Curling around her glass of scotch, Audrey seems to weigh the information they’ve been given. “Maybe—I don’t know. Do you think there could have been some kind of—?” She waves a hand. “I don’t know, like, emergency program baked into the trouble?”

Nathan casts her an uncertain look. And she rushes to explain.

“I’m just saying, if it knew you were leaving, maybe it was trying to stop you,” she offers.

It’s not a bad idea, but it doesn’t line up with what he saw. He shakes his head. “If that were it, then how come you were the only one who went all—” He waves a hand. “Cryptic and evil?”

Audrey’s eyes go wide. “Evil?” She asks.

He takes a sip—a gulp, really—of his scotch. “It’s, uh, kind of a blur,” he lies.

Those last few moments—hours, seconds, minutes, whatever they were—linger in his mind, closer than a memory and clearer than a nightmare: a cigarette burn pressed into the softest and deepest part of himself. He doesn’t want to look at it.

At her.

Like loitering too long might somehow Bloody Mary her out of the wish and into the real world if he isn’t careful.

“She wasn’t the only one there,” he says. He stares down at the scotch in his glass instead of at his friends’ faces. “But the rest of them were—I don’t know. Puppets. Pawns. They were getting yanked around as much as I was.”

He puts back what’s left of his glass with every intention of pouring himself another one. “That other you?” He says with a weak attempt at a chuckle as he uncorks the bottle. “She knew exactly what she was doing.”

Audrey doesn’t say anything, but she lays her hand—warm, familiar, safe—over his wrist to stop him pouring more. They hold eye contact that means just a little too much and lasts just a little too long.

He lets go of the bottle.

“Maybe Audrey’s immunity broke the trouble?” Nathan ponders.

Duke shakes a finger at him. “Yeah, see—that’s the thing.” He clicks his teeth. “The _Audrey_ that it copied—the, you know, the not terrifying one—yeah, she had some details wrong. But she was playing her part, you know? Acted normal. Didn’t believe in the troubles. The whole thing. But the other one,” Duke continues, his voice muted. “She _knew_ the wish wasn’t real. She knew _she_ wasn’t real.”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “Didn’t bother her at all. Hell, I think she was— _playing_. Nobody else was like that.”

It creeps him out thinking about it—crawls under his skin and tries to drag him back to that half-together house with its shivering walls and impossible dark. Back to her, the way she waited for him like a snake preparing its strike.

For all that Nathan looks worried, Audrey looks horrified. She stares down at the table wide-eyed and silent.

“Okay, so it’s one of the other Audreys from some different round of troubles,” Nathan says, as though aiming to diffuse the sudden gloom, “So, maybe she just wasn’t that nice.”

Audrey picks at her fingernails. “Yeah,” she mumbles, “or it’s whatever I am underneath them.”

Duke won’t let her stay in that place. “You’re not a monster, Audrey,” he promises. “Trust me, I’m related to enough of them.” Her offers her a smile. (And even manages to land one that’s mostly genuine.) “Whoever she is, you’re not your past.”

Audrey smiles right back. It warms something long frozen in the center of him.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “And neither are you.”

Duke casts his gaze down at his lap. “Yeah,” he mumbles, biting down on his grin. “Whatever you say, Audrey Parker.”

Audrey, it turns out, has no stamina for all-nighters. Either that, or she’s a very cheap drunk. Regardless, she winds up tucked into the corner of the booth, head propped against the wall, sound asleep, her glass of scotch not even half finished in front of her. Duke notices the soft, adoring look on Nathan’s face. It’s silly to be jealous when he knows he’s looking at her the same way.

Nathan looks up at him and Duke nods in the direction of the door. Wordlessly, they agree to retreat to the deck where they can talk without fear of waking her.

Of course, once they’re up there, neither of them seems to know what to say.

They stand at the rail and stare out into the water. With the clouds blotting out the stars, the horizon dips into an inky darkness that blurs the line between sea and sky. Any other day, and Duke might find it beautiful. Mysterious.

But he’s sick of the dark.

Leaning his elbows on the railing, he aims for teasing when he asks, “So, I’m guessing the copy came on to you?”

Nathan lets out a breath that Duke didn’t know he’d been holding. “Yeah,” he says.

Duke nods. “Sorry.” Discomfort hangs like a goddamn albatross on his neck. He aims a tight laugh up at the sky. “This trouble sure aired out all my dirty laundry, huh?”

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Nathan mumbles cryptically. Duke has no idea what to do with that.

Duke isn’t drunk but wonders if maybe Nathan is.

He turns around to lean his back to the railing and crosses his arms. “The other me,” he asks, “Was he—I don’t know. Weird?”

Often, the strangest part of the wish had been how un-strange it all was. Duke had never been able to shake the feeling of _wrongness_ that colored his new reality, but for all the red flags, the people inside the wish were so—themselves.

Normal.

He wonders if Nathan would say the same of his doppelganger.

Nathan seems to chew the question. He stares out at the water, an inscrutable expression on his face.

“He wasn’t you,” he finally says.

Duke drops his chin, aiming a chuckle at his feet. He shakes his head. “Well, yeah, I knew that.” He tries to bury the brokenhearted embarrassment that rises up like a leak in the ship of himself. Scratching the back of his neck, he pitches his voice casual when he says, “Sorry if he, y’know. Made this awkward.” Duke laughs. “More awkward.”

Nathan grips the railing so hard his knuckles go white. Duke wonders if he’s got any idea he’s doing it.

“I’ve, uh, been wondering,” Nathan murmurs. The words stutter-stop their way out of him. He stares down at his feet. “What the—what wish-me did different. To, um. To make you… stay.”

Definitely drunk.

Duke stares back at him, for once in his life totally at a loss for words. Nathan allows the silence for hardly more than a second before balling up and retreating away from the railing. “Never mind,” he grits. “Stupid question. Forget I said anything.” He turns as if to leave—although where he’d go, below deck or back to his truck, Duke has no idea.

Duke catches him by the elbow before he can put any more distance between them. “Nate,” he urges, “Slow down. Wait.”

Nathan glares at him like a man ready to run. But he doesn’t pull away. And Duke doesn’t let go.

Holding Nathan’s gaze, Duke’s gentle when he says, “Nate, nothing you did could have made me stay.”

Hurt crosses Nathan’s face for just an instant before it’s gone, replaced with anger. “Right,” he mutters, turning away, “Of course. Sorry I asked.”

“ _Nathan_ ,” Duke pushes. He squeezes Nathan’s arm like it makes any difference. Duke searches for the words. He has to say this _right_. Neither of them can afford another misunderstanding.

“The wish didn’t just fix _us_ ,” he says. It feels clumsy. It feels _exposed_. But it’s important. So, Duke swallows his pride and says, “That other me, he had a family and a future and a house to grow up in, you know?”

Something like guilt crosses Nathan’s expression. He looks down at his feet. “Oh,” he murmurs.

Duke steps in closer and tries to duck into Nathan’s line of sight and meet his eyes again. “I didn’t have that.” He knows the smile on his face must look laughably fragile. “I had you,” he confesses.

He shakes his head. “That was too much to put on you. And it—fuck, Nate, there’s no good way to say this, but it—it wasn’t enough, you know?”

The version of himself that first left Haven was so angry and so empty. Even if they’d been perfect, even if they’d never fought and never lied and never made any of the mistakes they always seemed to stumble their way into—even then, Duke would still have had all that self-loathing buried underneath.

“Love couldn’t save me,” Duke jokes—weak of a joke as it is. For a moment, they both seem to forget how to breathe. “No matter how much I wanted it to.”

Nathan stares back at him with an expression that’s trying so hard to be anger. It falls just short. Duke watches him, not knowing if he’s burnt a bridge or extended an olive branch.

Nathan looks away first. He glances down at the deck, pulling in a breath through his nose. His shoulders drop in a way that reads as purposeful.

“We were kids,” Nathan sighs. He closes his eyes. “I was so pissed at you.” His hands ball into fists at his sides. By the look on his face, it seems as though he’s dragging the words up from the darkest, deepest part of himself—like each one is made of cement and he’s heaving them up from the water.

Knowing Nathan, it probably feels like that to him, too.

Quietly—so quietly, Duke almost can’t hear him over the sound of the waves kissing the hull of the Rouge—Nathan says, “I thought it was my fault.”

Duke laughs.

It all seems so far away, now. Simple by comparison. All their stupid fights, all the rage they pointed at each other because there was nowhere else for it to go.

“You were one of the only good things this town ever gave me,” Duke tells him. He shakes his head. “Sorry I fucked it up.”

Nathan practically launches at him. All at once, his arms are around Duke’s chest, holding him in a hug so tight, it hurts to breathe. After only a moment’s hesitation, he buries his nose in Nathan’s hair.

(Hair that happens to smell like cheap, 2-in-1 shampoo—not that that’s relevant.)

“You didn’t fuck it up,” Nathan says against his shoulder.

Duke has to put an arm’s length of distance between them when he starts to choke up. One hand on Nathan’s shoulder, he presses the heel of his other hand against his eyes with a tight laugh.

“Jesus Christ,” he puffs, “Haven’t you seen me cry enough for one day?”

Nathan cuffs his shoulder with a bashful grin. “Payback for the tacks,” he says and Duke startles into another laugh.

Duke shakes his head. “Oh, fuck you,” he chuckles.

It might not be the shining, almost-perfect world of the wish. It might not be the life he thought he was going to have. It might not even be the life he wanted.

But that thing that looked like Audrey—

She was wrong.

* * *

**AUDREY**

Audrey doesn’t realize she’s dozed off until a gentle hand in her hair eases her awake. She comes to slowly, blinking the sleep from her eyes and finding herself somewhere her half-awake mind doesn’t immediately recognize.

It only takes a moment to clock the gentle sway of the floor and the honey color of the wood paneling and realize she’s on Duke’s boat. The same Duke whose fingers card through her hair, who blinks down at her with eyes so warm they melt her heart.

“Hi,” she murmurs, smiling up at him and stretching like a cat.

Everything is okay. Duke’s back.

“Hey there, Sleeping Beauty,” he singsongs as he straightens up. She misses his hand in her hair immediately. “Sun’s almost up. Time for you to turn into a pumpkin.”

Audrey frowns blearily. She rubs her eyes and pushes away from the wall. “I think you got your fairy tales mixed up,” she mumbles.

“Yeah, yeah,” Duke says. He reaches for her hand to help lever her up from the booth. “Whichever one you are, I got a Prince Charming lined up to drive you home, so. C’mon.”

Audrey huffs a little laugh and glances back and forth between them. “Which one of you is supposed to be Prince Charming?” She jokes.

Duke shoots her a soft, tired smile. “You know which one,” he says quietly. His sad resignation cleaves through her chest. She casts a helpless look at Nathan, but he only mirrors her wounded expression right back.

It’s too early to have this conversation. Duke’s been through too much. They’re all exhausted. It isn’t the time.

But she hates letting it lie.

She stands up on her tiptoes and throws her arms around his neck. It takes him a moment to return the embrace, but eventually his hands press against her back and hold her close. It took the three of them entirely too long to get their act together. She curses every wasted day.

Dropping back to the flats of her feet, she cradles his face in her hands. His gaze darts across her face, like he can’t decide where to look. She tugs him low enough to press a kiss to his forehead.

“We missed you,” she whispers. It elicits a soft, strangled sound she’s sure she isn’t supposed to hear. He clears his throat to cover it.

“Good to be back,” he says, nearly fumbling his words.

* * *

**NATHAN**

Nathan drops Audrey off at the Gull just as the sun begins to crest over the water. It colors everything orange and gold, chasing off the shadows of the night before. Audrey struggles to stay awake in the passenger’s seat, her head lolling on her shoulders and tipping against the window. He takes every stoplight as an opportunity to watch the soft outline of her profile in the sun.

“D’you think we should’ve told him?” She mumbles sleepily as he pulls into the parking lot.

Nathan sighs.

“Probably not,” he says. “He’s been through a lot.”

Audrey, propelled forward by the stubborn, bleary focus of half-dreaming, insists, “Yeah, but he thinks we _don’t_.”

“Don’t what?” Nathan asks.

She frowns, nestling into the seat with her eyes closed. “Love him.”

Guilt seems to suck the air from the car. “Yeah,” he mumbles. He stares down at his lap.

She seems to shake herself awake. Or at least, she tries to. She sits up and rubs her eyes and fumbles with her seatbelt. Neither one of them knows what to say. After a moment, she runs a hand over her face and sighs, “The trouble wasn’t the only thing we needed to fix.”

“Yeah,” Nathan agrees. “I know.”

“We saved him,” she says with a tired smile. “Too bad that was probably the easy part.”

Nathan chuckles, shaking his head. “Technically, I think he saved himself,” he points out.

Audrey’s head lolls again. “Yeah,” she murmurs dreamily. “He did.”

“Need me to carry you upstairs, Sleeping Beauty?” He jokes. She shoves his arm.

“Quit calling me that,” she grouses, but there’s no heat to it. She waves her hand with a grin. “Duke’s the one with the princess hair.” She fumbles with the passenger door; it sticks—been like that since he was a teenager. Duke always used to give him shit about it.

“Hey,” Nathan interrupts. He leans across the gear shift to press a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “Goodnight. Or—uh, good morning.”

“Mmm, you really are Prince Charming,” she hums against his mouth.

He smiles and tips forward for one more kiss. “Good morning,” he decides. “Now, go get some sleep.”

She makes a point of ruffling his hair before stepping out of the car and dragging herself up the stairs. He waits until she unlocks her front door before he puts the car in reverse.

The weight of his own exhaustion finally hits on his drive home. Whatever leftover adrenaline that had kept him running finally peters out. Fatigue tangles up with relief and leaves him sluggish. He’s grateful for the lack of traffic on the road this time of morning. Frankly, the drive is something of a blur.

He steps into the house, locking the door behind him and drifting sleepily through the kitchen. He moves on autopilot, struggling to keep his eyes open with the same comic stubbornness he’d watched on Audrey, before. Head drooping, he watches his own feet drag against the carpet as he rounds the corner. Out of nowhere—and in the open where there shouldn’t be anything to bump into—he crashes against something tall and solid.

“Oh fuck,” he blurts. Understanding and guilt and dread all land at the same time. He tips his head up to find Duke’s face staring startled back at him.

Nathan stumbles backwards. “You’re still here.

The temporary shoots him a withering look.

“Nice to see you too, Nathan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, gang! I wrote the entire chapter only to decide I really wasn't happy with it and then had to rewrite the entire thing all over again lmao. There's either one or two chapters to go, after this! Just a few scattered threads to tie up and then we are careening into the ending. A huge thank you to anyone and everyone who has followed this fic. It really is a huge labor of love that I've put a lot of time and care into. And it's been a joy.
> 
> As always, I respond to every comment and feedback means so much to me, especially with this piece. And no matter what, thank you for reading!


	9. to the love i knew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A (mid-season) finale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit gang, it's here. I had.... a really rough couple of months since I posted last. Gathering enough focus to work on the chapter has been an ongoing challenge. And I wanted to make absolutely sure that i ended things _right_. I had a lot of threads to tie up. I think, finally, I've accomplished everything I set out to do. Thank you so, so much to everyone who has been here from the beginning and thank you to anyone who joined in along the way. I'm really excited to show this to you. I really hope you like it.  
> ♥

**DUKE**

Between Nathan and Audrey keeping him up until the asscrack of dawn and the healthy dose of nightmares between him and restful slumber, Duke has not been asleep _nearly_ enough hours when the buzz of his cell on the nightstand rousts him again.

Fumbling for it, Duke finds himself even more irritated to see Nathan’s name blinking back at him from the caller ID.

What, is the guy _made_ of manic energy? Jesus.

“Whichever part of Haven is burning down,” he grouses blearily into the phone, face still half-smushed against his pillow, “I am 100% sure that Dwight is more qualified to put out the fire than I am.”

“Sorry,” Nathan sighs—a new one for him. Normally, getting a _sorry_ from Nathan Wuornos requires at least three natural disasters, half a fistfight, and a minor case of food poisoning. “But you’re gonna wanna see this for yourself. You and the… other you? You didn’t swap, this time.”

It takes Duke’s half-awake, half-hungover brain a few seconds to parse out that particular jumble of words. When he finally does, he wishes he hadn’t.

“Fuck,” he groans, burying his face in his pillow with a frustrated puff.

Today is going to be a long day.

* * *

**NATHAN**

Nathan has no good reason to feel so goddamn _nervous_ —as if this were some uncomfortable brunch between an ex and a current partner instead of just another hiccup in just another trouble on just another day, in Haven.

The strange, phantom guilt peeking in around at the edges of his thoughts makes absolutely no sense. Neither version of Duke is _actually_ his partner. (Although, one of them is—technically—his ex.) And he and the temporary barely so much as kissed. Nathan ducked, avoided, and talked his way out of virtually every attempt at affection he was offered.

So, why does it feel so much like he cheated?

And why the hell does he feel like he _cheated_ on a man he isn’t even dating?

He takes small comfort in the fact that Audrey, when she arrives, radiates the same awkward anxiety that he does. At least their misery has company.

On the other hand, the temporary acts less uncomfortable and more visibly annoyed. Any goodwill Nathan once had with the man ran dry somewhere between the moment they _shattered his understanding of the universe_ and the moment Nathan barked out his stupid, startled, “Oh fuck, you’re still here,” when they bumped into each other earlier this morning.

The temporary’s current demeanor lands somewhere higher than _subtly hostile_ but below _gleefully venomous_. Given the circumstances, Nathan figures that’s probably better than expected.

Nothing about the situation is helped by the fact that Nathan’s running on maybe two hours of fitful sleep snagged between when he first got home and now. Audrey looks even drowsier than he does, her hair pulled back in a ponytail that doesn’t quite catch everything. She and Nathan sit tense at the kitchen table while the temporary perches on the counter and regards both of them with the proud and practiced disdain of a pampered housecat.

Between the three of them, they’ve run through two full pots of coffee before Duke (the original) even walks through the door.

Nathan and Audrey both clamber to their feet at the sound of the door, but the temporary merely gazes disparagingly over the rim of his mug.

“Thought you’d be taller,” he snarks as the door closes behind his original.

Duke—in an unbelievably rare show of restraint—looks speechless. He hovers in the doorway, staring openmouthed as his mirror image drops down from the counter and abandons his mug by the sink.

Absolutely none of the strangeness of the past week comes close to the pure, cartoonish surrealism of two Duke Crockers standing face-to-face in Nathan’s living room. Actually, he’s fairly sure he’s had this dream before and he’s convinced it was some kind of nightmare.

“Uh, Duke,” Nathan says, nodding to the original. “Meet—Duke.”

Audrey immediately goes looking for some way to keep her hands busy. She abandons any pretense of holding still, sifting through various books and knickknacks and picture frames that she can pick up and poke at and put down to keep herself from staring at the funhouse mirror effect of the two Dukes at the center of the room.

Finally seeming to find his composure, Duke’s startled expression drops into a bizarre sort of calm. He takes a few steps forward. The temporary holds his ground. They size each other up—moving not quite in unison but with an eerie synchronicity.

The temporary settles back on his heels; the original rocks up onto his toes. The temporary shoves his hands in his pockets; the original crosses his arms. The both of them tip their noses up and narrow their eyes.

Yeah. Nathan hates this.

He’s on the verge of blurting something stupid just for the sake of breaking the silence when the real Duke beats him too it with a beleaguered sounding sigh.

“Okay,” Duke singsongs; the lightness of his tone contrasts the tension around his eyes. “So. This is strange.”

Making a face, the temporary leans around Duke to shoot a withering look at Nathan. “I don’t _really_ sound like that, do I?” He asks.

The question startles Nathan into an unguarded bark of laughter (which only earns him an even more pointed glare from the temporary, but which does unravel some of the mounting tension from the room).

“Hey!” Duke retorts. “What’s wrong with how I sound?!”

The temporary offers Duke a transparently disingenuous smile and it’s all Nathan can do not to start laughing all over again.

Trying very, very hard to keep his tone level, Nathan says, “You both sound the same to me,” which results in _both_ Dukes whirling around to scowl at him in unison.

(It’s worth it.)

“ _Boys_ ,” Audrey urges, even though Nathan can tell she’s buttoning down on a grin of her own. “Focus.”

The two Dukes return to their staring contest. Nathan and Audrey cast each other matching looks of uncertainty as they wait for one of them to _do_ something. After a few moments spent looking his doppelganger over, Duke asks, “So, do you feel—y’know. Weak?”

Audrey forsakes fiddling with the contents of Nathan’s bookshelf and drifts closer. “Why would he feel weak?” She asks.

In perfect and eerie unison, they answer, “You can’t have two of the same person in one universe. Obviously.”

As soon as the sentence ends, they both turn equally weirded out expressions on each other.

“Yeah,” Duke puffs, “Let’s not do that again.” He seems to wait—as though making sure that his double isn’t about to start talking alongside him again—before he continues, “Anyway. Can’t have two of us in one place. Breaks the rules.”

“The rules,” Audrey echoes.

“Pretty sure the troubles don’t have rules,” Nathan points out.

Duke shrugs. “Yeah, well. If they did, he’d probably—I don’t know. Feel sick or whatever. Like he was,” Duke waves a hand. “Fading. ‘Cause he’s not supposed to be here.”

The temporary aims a scowl at the floor, retreating backwards a half a step. For all the bluster of his anger, when measured up against the real thing he seems somehow smaller than Duke. Like he can’t find a space in the room for himself.

Crossing his arms, he mutters, “Look, I don’t wanna be here any more than you want me here.”

Guilt tastes metallic in Nathan’s mouth. He remembers, vividly, the sight of the temporary—of _Duke_ , because he was still thinking of him as Duke back then, trouble or no—knelt at his feet after helping with his t-shot. He remembers the honeyed warmth of his voice and the way his lips looked dragging against the inside of his thigh. He remembers all the relaxed, comfortable gentleness the temporary carried himself with right up until the moment Nathan opened his mouth and uprooted everything.

The temporary sighs. “I just want my life back.”

“Yeah, about that.” Duke sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth and levels his double with a look. “There might not be anything left to go back to.”

Shoulders stiff and voice pointedly, forcibly level, the temporary asks, “Wanna tell me what the hell you mean by that?”

“When it spat me out it—I don’t know. It broke.”

“The wish?” Audrey clarifies.

“Everything,” Duke says. “The fucking _sky_. I don’t know. Maybe it was just the Holloway House going apeshit, but—” He casts his double a damn near pitying look. (It can’t have been intentional, because Nathan knows damn well that Duke wouldn’t want anyone, not even himself, looking at him that way.)

“But maybe it was worse,” Duke continues. “I just need you to know that. Even if we get you back, I have no idea what you’d be walking into.”

The temporary nods. He gathers himself up—all quiet grief and noble suffering. In some ways, it reminds Nathan of the real Duke, but in other ways it feels almost like a caricature of him. Like Emilia’s wish leaned into all the softest parts of Duke without remembering to account for the fire and resilience that kept him fighting.

Sounding sickeningly resigned, the temporary mumbles, “Well, it’s not like I can stay here.”

“You could,” Audrey offers, sudden and clumsy. The words land flat on the floor and the whole room seems to wince at once.

“Thanks,” the temporary drawls, “but I really can’t.”

“Okay,” Nathan puffs, crossing his arms and pushing away from the wall. “So, how do we get you back?”

Chewing his lip, the temporary considers the question. After a moment, he asks, “I know I _am_ a wish, but can I make one?”

* * *

**DWIGHT**

The most predictable thing about Haven is how unfailingly unpredictable it is. Once the troubles wind back up, the chaos in Haven never really stops or slows down. Dwight bounces from one patch job to another, piecing the town back together by inches. Like a hydra, solve one trouble and three more appear in its place.

Except, when they pull Duke from the Holloway house, the town goes blissfully—suspiciously—quiet. It won’t last; that’s one thing he can count on. But for the first morning in what feels like a long, long time, Dwight steeps his coffee, cooks his breakfast, and sits down without any task or responsibility or crisis nagging at the corner of his brain. His phone doesn’t ring. He watches from his kitchen window while the sun creeps higher in the sky and eats his eggs.

And then there’s a knock at his door.

Sighing, Dwight downs the last of his coffee and readjusts his expectations. Half of a peaceful breakfast is still one half a breakfast more than he’s gotten in a long while.

Finding Jordan McKee on his doorstep at nine in the morning puts a hiccup in his practiced composure. His kneejerk reaction is a low, icy dread that something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. But despite her visible agitation, her prickly demeanor doesn’t convey any real urgency. Not the life-or-death, down-to-the-wire Haven kind, anyway.

He rocks back on his heels and raises an eyebrow at her. “Not like you to swing by without calling,” he comments as he steps out of the way to invite her inside. “Coffee’s made.”

She breezes past him, digging through his kitchen cabinets to find the mug that she likes (and giving him hell for letting it get pushed to the back where she can’t reach) before turning to the fridge.

“Milk’s gone bad,” she tells him, her nose wrinkled in distaste.

Offering half a shrug, he abandons his unfinished breakfast by the sink and takes a seat back at the table. “Haven’t gone shopping in a while.” He grins and offers her a mock toast with his mug. “I’ll pass your complaints on to management.”

“Jackass,” she grumbles fondly. Settling for her cup of black coffee, she takes a seat across from him at the table. She bristles with excess energy: taps her gloved fingers against the side of the mug, bounces her knee, chews her lip.

He watches her over the rim of his coffee as he takes a sip.

“Should I be worried?”

Sighing, Jordan squares her shoulders and says, “You’ve been out of the loop too long, Dwight.”

Dwight isn’t surprised to find her here about the Guard, but he wishes she weren’t. The topic leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

“On purpose,” he reminds her, straightening in his seat. “I help Vince out because I owe him, but what the Guard does has nothing to do with me.”

“I get it,” Jordan promises, puffing her bangs out of her face in a frustrated burst of air. “But I think you’d wanna know what they’re planning.” Glancing guiltily down at the table, she adds, “You won’t like it.”

Dwight hasn’t trusted the Guard in years, but he trusts Jordan. Sitting forward in his seat, he braces his elbows on the table. “What won’t I like?”

“You know about the Hunter,” she says, skirting around the thing with an anxiety so palpable it starts to take up space in the room.

“Yeah,” he confirms, “when the troubles disappear”

“And Audrey.”

Dwight feels a small ember of dread start to flicker into something bigger. “Yeah,” he agrees with a tired sigh. “And Audrey.”

Jordan glances around like she expects someone to be listening, like she’s waiting to get _caught_. He wonders just how deep this goes that it’s got Jordan McKee wound up like a cheap wristwatch. She’s not the most levelheaded person he’s ever known, but she’s good in a crisis. Reliable. This twitchy, cagey unease—he doesn’t like it.

“Yeah, well,” Jordan says, “it turns out, it’s a choice. Audrey doesn’t just vanish; she _decides_ to go.”

And finally, the pieces start to fall into place.

“And the Guard’s scared she isn’t going to,” Dwight surmises.

“Terrified,” she confirms. “And they came up with a contingency plan.”

Dwight might not like their methods—never has, if he’s honest—but he can’t fault them their desperation. No trouble’s ever good, and plenty of them are downright dangerous. Unlivable. Jordan knows that better than anyone, wants them gone more than anyone. So, if she’s not happy with the backup plan—well. She’s right. That fact alone doesn’t sit well with Dwight.

“You know about the Danvers trouble?” She asks.

“Mind control, yeah,” Dwight fires back without even having to think about it too hard. He knows this town inside and out, Guard or no Guard. He protects the people inside of it. “But Morton Danvers isn’t troubled.”

Clicking her teeth, Jordan settles back in her chair with a grimace. “You’re right. He isn’t.” She lifts her gaze to meet Dwight’s. “But his daughter is.”

Dwight’s met Ginger. Last time he saw her, she only came up to his knee. She’d be around Lizzie’s age, by now.

He’s struck with a wave of disgust.

“What kind of plan is this?” He barks, even though they both know the plan isn’t Jordan’s. “Audrey’s immune to the troubles.”

“Nathan isn’t,” Jordan reminds him, voice low. “Duke isn’t.”

Huffing out a frustrated puff of air, Dwight taps the table just to give his hands something to do. “So, they put her between a rock and a hard place,” he speculates begrudgingly. “Get Ginger to make Duke and Nathan hurt themselves.”

“Or each other,” Jordan agrees. She wilts, voice twisted with guilt when she says, “She’s a kid, Dwight.”

“I know,” he sighs. Running a hand through his hair, he asks, “You’ve met Audrey. D’you really think you need to strongarm her into doing right by this town?”

“I don’t,” Jordan confesses. “But nobody wants to take chances, with this one. It’s supposed to be a backup plan, but it’s wrong. Even as a last resort.” Jordan shakes her head and stares down into her coffee. “The Floreses were right. We can’t claim to protect this town and then turn around and use _kids_ to fight our battles. I want the troubles gone, but I’m not putting a little girl in the line of fire.”

He cracks a wry smile. “No, but you are putting _me_ in the line of fire,” he teases—a dry joke without any bite. “Not gonna be much help if they’re all packing heat.”

Jordan levels him with a look that he knows is well-meaning, but still misses the point. “I know they’re out of hand, Dwight,” she says, “but they wouldn’t shoot you. You’re still one of us.”

He keeps his tone simple and clipped when he says, “Didn’t stop them last time.”

Wincing, Jordan looks away. “I’m sorry.” She knocks her knuckles against the table, a sound muffled by the leather. “I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t want to get involved.”

“Jordan,” he interrupts. “What’s the plan?”

Every muscle in her shoulders visibly relaxes. She bites down on a private smile and nods. “First, we get Danvers and Ginger out of Haven,” she decides. It’s the next part that’s tricky. “Then…”

“Then we brace for the fallout,” Dwight finishes.

“It’ll be ugly,” she warns. “You sure you want your name attached to this?”

Dwight extends his hand to her. It’s an exercise of trust on both their parts, even with the layer of leather gloves providing a buffer between them.

“I’ve got your back.”

After only a moment’s hesitation, she reaches out and clasps his hand: the two of them with elbows braced on the table, joined together for a noble cause like warriors of old. Dwight’s always bloomed in situations like these, when he had a cause to tie his banner to. Once upon a time, the Guard _was_ the cause.

Funny how things change.

* * *

**DUKE**

“Hi there,” Duke singsongs with an overly cheerful wave. “We’ve got a weird problem and a pretty bad idea. Can we come in?”

The woman answering the door handles the sight of not one but two Duke Crockers on her porch about as well as could be expected of anybody. Which is to say, she visibly recoils. After which, she schools her expression into something vacant and polite and—after an uncomfortably long hesitation—invites them all in.

Which is how Duke gets to meet Emilia.

After all the build up around what happened to him, some part of Duke expected the kid who sic’d this trouble on him to look—meaner, maybe? Whatever he thought she’d be, he wasn’t expecting a round-faced girl with wild curly hair and a familiar fire in her eyes.

She has something to prove. It’s clear as day. (And god knows he’s sure of what that looks like.)

“So,” Duke hums thoughtfully. He crosses his arms and cocks his head like he’s sizing her up but doesn’t try to hide the smile sneaking onto his face. Leaning into the faux grandiosity of his words, he jokes, “Rumor on the street says you’re the, uh, arbiter of my suffering, so to speak.”

Audrey elbows him, but Emilia laughs. She extends a hand, and they shake.

“The one and only,” she replies, beaming. She looks between the rest of them, her gaze lingering on the temporary. “Mom said you mentioned something about a bad plan?”

Duke nudges his double to the front of the group.

“Uh, yeah,” the temporary starts a little shakily. “Can I make a—” He clamps down on the word before it can escape preemptively. “A—you know. A thing? _The_ thing?”

Emilia clears her throat in a way Duke can only assume is meant to cover for a laugh. She stands a little straighter. “I’m—” She starts, only to grind to a stop. “I’m not really sure.” Peeking over their shoulders, she looks to where her mothers are hovering nearby.

Vivian clears her throat and every head in the room turns to look at her. “It might,” she admits, vague but honest. “Far as I know, nobody’s ever tried.” She casts the doppelganger a pitying look and explains, “Temporaries don’t usually realize they’re in the wrong place.”

With a familiar dose of cutting cheerfulness, the temporary singsongs a venomous, “You can thank Nathan for that one.”

Nathan—either in a rare show of sense or a rare show of shame—offers no argument and retreats further into the collar of his coat.

“Do you think it would—I mean, what if it just made another one?” Audrey asks the question on everyone’s mind.

“I won’t make any promises,” Vivian answers cautiously. “I don’t actually know what happens when he says those words. Maybe nothing. But I just don’t think you _can_ make a temporary out of a temporary. Too many layers to it. Like—a dream of a dream of a dream, you know? I think it’s either going to work or it isn’t.”

“Not, like, the _most_ convincing vote of confidence,” Duke points out. He crosses his arms and regards the Floreses skeptically. It seems like one hell of a gamble when even the experts are playing by the seat of their pants.

But the other Duke, the one that doesn’t belong here, he shakes his head and takes a step forward. “It’s good enough for me,” he says. “I wanna try.”

“Me too,” Emilia hurries to agree.

The five of them relocate to the kitchen, although Duke finds himself acutely aware of Emilia’s mothers hovering just out of sight, occasionally peeking around the corner like something out of a cartoonish comedy.

Nobody looks particularly relaxed. Second to the temporary and his thinly veiled anxiety, Duke would peg Nathan as the most antsy.

Duke wonders just how intimate the two of them got in his absence. (The feeling isn’t quite jealousy. And he wouldn’t have any right to jealousy, even if it were. It’s more of a morbid and self-flagellatory curiosity.)

“Okay. We’re doing this?” He hears his own voice ask.

Emilia, who suddenly seems much older and much calmer than she ought to, reaches out a gentle hand to steady the temporary’s elbow. “Whenever you’re ready,” she assures him.

The temporary nods. The moment stretches into a held breath, where they all stand in silence and watch him gather his thoughts to make his wish. And then all at once, the tension bursts. He whirls around, pinning the three of them with a naked, open expression that makes Duke embarrassed by proxy to see it on his own face. He glances away, unsure of the etiquette required for when you understand the inner workings of another person—another you, technically—far more clearly than you otherwise ought to.

“Guess this is goodbye, huh?” The temporary asks, with an unconvincing bluster to his tone. He steps forward and pulls Audrey into a tight hug, his arms around her shoulders. After only a second of startled hesitation, she relaxes into his chest and pats his back.

“Good luck in there,” she mumbles, warm if a little awkward.

When he pulls away, he clears his throat and says, “Hey. Um—thanks. For treating me like I was real, even when you knew I wasn’t.”

“You’re still real,” she promises, reaching up to squeeze his shoulder. “You weren’t the Duke were looking for, but you’re still real.”

The temporary casts her a fond, placating look that Duke knows too well; he doesn’t quite believe her.

Which is too bad. Audrey has a knack for beautiful lies.

After Audrey, the temporary turns his attention to Nathan. He only falters for a moment before cradling Nathan’s face in his hands and pressing forward into a kiss. Nathan startles, eyes gone wide at first. But he doesn’t pull away and the kiss becomes something so damnably intimate it borders on sacred. It doesn’t feel like any of the rest of them ought to be there to see it.

In a clumsy attempt at breaking the tension, Duke rocks on his heels and jokes, “Is it weird that I’m kind of into this?”

Audrey elbows him, but she can’t hide the devilish little grin that crosses her own face.

“ _Behave_ ,” she whispers.

“What?!” Duke laughs, scampering back out of reach of her bony elbow. “We were all thinking it.”

When the kiss breaks, the temporary doesn’t pull back right away. Instead, he presses their foreheads together and murmurs to Nathan in a tone too quiet to hear.

It sure must have been something, though. Nathan’s breath stutters. His eyes go wider than they were already, and he gives one stiff nod.

And then Duke’s face to face with himself. It’s more unsettling than looking into a mirror; in this case, the familiar face has a mind of its own. But the two of them only revel in the oddity of it for a moment before the temporary extends his hand and Duke takes it.

“Good luck,” the temporary says. He squeezes Duke’s hand. “Hope you find what you were wishing for.”

Duke can’t resist a small laugh. “Yeah. Me too. Have fun in there.” He releases the temporary’s hand and steps back. “Say hi to Dwight for me.”

“Dwight?” His double asks, cocking an eyebrow.

“Big guy,” Duke explains. He raises a hand over his head to demonstrate just how tall. “Looks like he chops trees for a living. Can’t miss him.”

The temporary rolls his eyes. “I know _who_ Dwight is. Just—Dwight?”

Tucking his hands into his pockets, Duke says, “He saved all our asses. Trust me.” Nodding in Emilia’s direction, he adds a warm, “Make him tell you the story when you get there.”

He watches himself laugh and shake his head and it isn’t nearly as strange as it really ought to be.

“I guess I will,” the temporary chuckles. Right as he starts to turn away, Duke reaches out and catches his elbow, stopping him in his tracks. He grips a little tighter than he means to, but he needs his double’s full attention. This next part—it’s important.

“Stay away from the Holloway house, okay?” Duke urges. “Don’t even drive down Marsden Road.”

The temporary cracks a crooked and knowing smile. “Holloway?” He asks with a theatrical tilt of his head. “Never heard of it.”

Duke puffs a low laugh. “That’s the spirit.”

“Alright.” The temporary turns to face Emilia. “It’s go-time.”

Nodding, she cracks her knuckles and widens her stance like she’s expecting someone to try and bowl her over. “Ready when you are,” she tells him. “Just, uh—choose your words carefully, okay? Pretty sure we only get one shot at this.”

He closes his eyes and takes a long, slow breath.

“I wish I was back where I belong.”

There’s a pop, like a sudden change in altitude. Duke’s view of the temporary hiccups, vibrates into motion blur, and then he’s gone—nothing but a wrinkle in the rug where he was standing to prove he was ever there at all.

No one speaks. No one even moves.

Duke stands with his arms wrapped around himself, staring at the place where the temporary used to be.

They killed him, he thinks. They fed him to that Audrey-shaped thing in the Holloway house.

Audrey shakes him from his thoughts with a gentle hand on his arm. She shifts in front of him, a worried expression on her face. “Duke?” She asks. “You okay?”

“She’s still in there,” Duke murmurs, and neither of them need him to explain who he means. Glancing down at his feet, he wonders if maybe they condemned him to something worse than death by sending him back. “Think she’ll leave him alone?”

Audrey glances over her shoulder at Nathan. “I don’t know,” she confesses.

Duke nods. It shouldn’t matter. He wasn’t real. He wasn’t.

But Duke climbed into his life. A life with Angela and Bill and the Second Chance. A life with Nathan. It felt real enough. Maybe not as real as the world around him now, but more tangible than a dream. More true.

He doesn’t know if that life exists anymore. And he has no way of ever knowing. And it eats at him.

Nathan steps forward, his voice uncharacteristically gentle when he tells them, “He’d have died if he stayed. At least this way he’s got a chance.”

Duke reminds himself that this isn’t some kind of cosmic metaphor. The double looked like him, but it wasn’t him. What they did, the choices they all made—it wasn’t about _him_. Not really. And yet he still can’t quite shake the feeling that he gave up on himself, in ways both figurative and shockingly literal.

“Anyway,” he deflects, clearing his throat and tucking his hands back into his coat pockets. He tips his head at Emilia. “Thanks.”

She shrugs awkwardly and nods. “Least I could do, honestly.” Before she’s finished speaking, her mothers join them in the kitchen.

“I hope you don’t take this personally,” Vivian says, a sharp edge to the cheer in her voice. “But I don’t want to see any of you again until the troubles are over.”

Everyone laughs, if only as a release valve to the mounting tension in the room.

“Yes, ma’am,” Audrey agrees.

They make their goodbyes in a hurry, shuffling out of the Flores house with a sendoff that’s polite but not particularly warm. With all the momentum squashed out of them as if by some giant, cosmic rolling pin, the three of them linger awkwardly in the driveway. Duke leans up against the side of the bronco and puffs out a long, heavy breath—one he hadn’t quite realized he’d been holding.

“It’s finally over,” he murmurs, voice colored by something like awe. Relief is a palpable thing.

Wherever the temporary is now, Duke hopes it’s good. He hopes it’s happy.

“It’s over,” Audrey echoes. Her hand lands at the crook of his arm, gentle and soft. She smiles up at him. “Come over to my place? I’ve got wine. We should celebrate.”

He’s… touched, maybe—to know that his own misadventures would matter so much.

Offering a loose shrug and a wide grin, he sleight-of-hands away from his own sudden self-consciousness with a playful, “Any excuse to party, right?”

“’Any excuse’,” Nathan parrots with a roll of his eyes. He bumps their shoulders together in a way that’s clumsy but intentional. “Seems like a pretty special occasion.

“Sure,” Duke agrees. At the very least, they’ve probably all earned a drink.

When they get to the Gull, Duke hovers at the base of the stairs. He aims a thumb in the direction of the bar and asks, “Sure you don’t want me to grab a bottle of the hard stuff?”

Audrey shoos him up the stairs, shaking her head. “It’s not that kind of party,” she teases.

He makes a face as he’s shuffled up towards her apartment. “Doesn’t sound like much of a party,” he grumbles, but follows her through the door without further complaint.

Inside Audrey’s apartment, Duke could almost believe the troubles don’t exist. Or—at the very least—that they can’t touch them, here. It’s quiet and cozy and warm. On instinct, Duke goes to the cabinet to pull down three wine classes, but Audrey quickly brushes him away from the counter with faux frustration.

“Sit down!” She chuckles. “I got it, I got it.”

She pours them all generous glasses of wine, filled practically to the brim with an earthy scented red he didn’t catch the name of before he was banished to the couch. She sits down on the cushion beside him instead of taking the socially responsible option of putting an empty cushion between them and sitting at the opposite arm.

It seems purposeful, but maybe he’s reading too much into it. Maybe—definitely—he’s had too long a day and not nearly enough wine.

Nathan hovers at the kitchen counter and makes a show of trying to look relaxed, a venture he’s remarkably bad at. He remembers to ease the slope of his shoulders but forgets to unclench his jaw. He holds still—too still—when Duke looks at him but as soon as he looks away, he hears the telltale tap of Nathan’s fingers against the bulb of his wine glass.

Raising his eyebrows at Audrey, Duke offers a wry grin and comments, “Well, this is the worst party I’ve ever been to,” between sips of his wine.

Audrey rolls her eyes and turns sideways to face him, now cross-legged on the couch with her knees pressing against his thigh. She holds her glass in both hands and levels him with a warm, thoughtful smile.

“We missed you, y’know that?” She asks.

“Mm, not enough to keep two of me around, though,” he teases.

Nathan snorts. “Nobody in the world could survive two Duke Crockers,” he drawls.

Despite the warmth in both their voices, there’s still an unspoken tension vibrating through the room. Duke can’t put his finger on it. Nathan and Audrey keep looking back and forth between each other like they’re waiting for the other one to start the conversation for them, leaving Duke spotlighted in the center of the awkward atmosphere they’ve created.

Shooting both of them a curious, exasperated look, he jokes flatly, “Okay. So, why does it feel like you’re gonna tell me the family dog went away to live on a farm?”

Immediately, Audrey burbles with helpless, almost pained laughter and drops her head into her hands. “Oh my god,” she groans through the last of her chuckling, “We’re bad at this.”

Duke would very much like to be let in on the joke. He glances at Nathan but gets nothing but an uncomfortable smile in return. “Bad at what, exactly?” He asks.

Nathan stares down at his feet. “We talked, while you were gone—” He starts, all stilted and awkward, and a cold and quiet dread unsettles Duke’s stomach.

Of course they talked about him.

A trouble wearing his face galivanted around town proclaiming its love for Nathan all week. And now, instead of doing the noble thing of sweeping it under the rug and pretending it never happened, they’re going to put him through the ordeal of having a capital ‘T’ Talk with him about it.

Jesus.

No rest for the wicked, huh?

Dropping his head against the back of the couch, Duke drones, “This is worse than the dog thing.”

Audrey nudges him with her knee. “Duke,” she urges, “Shut up for a second.”

Staring miserably up at the ceiling, he allows them the chance to speak their piece. He knew this was coming—or at least, something like it. The wish went and uprooted a longstanding, unspoken, and worst-kept secret and dragged it out into the light. He can only imagine the drama his double caused in his absence. But he would rather hurl himself into the sea than have to sit through being *let down easy* by Nathan goddamn Wuornos. He fidgets, knee bouncing erratically while he waits for the other shoe to go ahead and drop already.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Audrey staring down into her wine glass like it’s some kind of scrying pool—as though she could magic her next sentence from it with a wave of her hand.

The quiet settles like an old house.

After a long pause, Audrey says, “We… haven’t been very good to you.”

Duke catches himself staring, awed and surprised. Of all the directions he thought this conversation had to be going, this definitely wasn’t one of them.

“We pushed you away,” she continues. “And we kept expecting the worst from you. And it wasn’t fair.” Sighing, she runs a hand across her face. “It was worse than unfair, honestly.”

“The fishing trip wasn’t your fault,” Nathan blurts, earnest if a little out of place. He says it so sudden and so easy, Duke almost wonders if he misheard.

(Duke doesn’t know, of course, that Nathan’s said it before—that Nathan’s said it _to him_ before, even if it was a him from a wish. So, he can’t know how the effortlessness of the confession comes from practice and repetition. It will be a long time before Nathan knows how to muscle his own anger and guilt into a shape he can stomach. But the words—he’s found his way to that much.)

“It wasn’t your fault, and I kept using it against you,” Nathan finishes. He stares down at his feet, his half-forgotten glass of wine held loosely in both hands. “I’m sorry.”

Audrey’s hand finds Duke’s. His heart bounces up into his mouth and he catches himself holding his breath—as if even the slightest wrong move could shatter the thing unfolding in front of him.

“We’re both sorry,” she promises. She runs her thumb along the ridge of his knuckles. “We can’t lose you again.”

Nathan pushes away from the kitchen counter. Abandoning his wine on the coffee table, he settles at the end of the couch, behind Audrey. They both look so damnably earnest. Duke doesn’t know what to do with it. All he knows is his heart stutters hopelessly in his chest while anxiety and excitement fold into each other until they’re marbled.

Clinging to humor, Duke offers a skeptical, “Okay, somehow the vibe has gone from ‘dead dog talk’ to that time a married couple tried to pick me up at a Pier One.”

They don’t react to the joke the way he expects them to. Audrey bites down on a grin and casts him a warm, bashful look that sends sparks up his spine. “Did it work?” She teases softly, “When they did it?”

Oh, she cannot possibly be suggesting what he thinks she’s suggesting.

“ _That’s_ what you’ve been talking about?” He asks in disbelief. His shock melts into a puff of laughter and he shakes his head. “Damn. I can’t believe my whole life has just been leading up to getting unicorn hunted by Nathan Wuornos.”

Audrey looks delighted while Nathan looks vaguely scandalized. Through laughter, Audrey swears, “ _Not_ unicorn hunting.” She collects herself and wipes at the corner of her eyes. Still smiling, she tries pitching her voice towards something more serious when she insists, “Really, Duke. This isn’t us and you. It’s all of us. The three of us. That’s what we want.”

Duke glances at Nathan over her shoulder, trying to gauge his reaction. He appreciates the sentiment, he does, but he isn’t exactly convinced. There’s been a lot of ‘ _us and you_ ’ in their track record, if they’re all being honest.

Raising his eyebrows at Nathan, he asks, “You too?”

Gobsmacked as he is, he _can_ believe that Audrey wants this. The two of them have been dancing around a _maybe_ ever since the day they met. Nathan, on the other hand—well. It’s a harder sell.

Nathan stares down at his lap. “Everything with the temporary,” he starts clumsily, “It, uh—I don’t know. It cleared up a lot of stuff, for me.” He looks up then, meeting Duke’s gaze over Audrey’s shoulder. “Yeah. This is what I want.”

When Duke looks for the words to say, he finds they evade him. He opens and closes his mouth uselessly.

He’s brought back to himself by the pressure of Audrey squeezing his fingers. Looking first down at their clasped hands and then up at her, he admits, “This is—not how I thought this was gonna go.”

“We kinda sprung it on you,” Audrey says. She offers him a quiet smile and he can’t stop staring at it. “You don’t have to decide anything right now,” she rushes to add. “Take your time. Think it over.”

“I don’t need time,” Duke blurts, so fast and eager it’s almost humiliating. Glancing away, he swallows around the lump in his throat and adds a quiet, “I know what I want.”

For a man who likes to pretend he isn’t afraid of anything, Duke finds himself truly shaken by the thought of actually getting what he wants.

But Audrey is brave. Oh god, isn’t she always?

She lets go of his hand. Leaning forward, into his space, she all but backs him up against the arm of the couch. With her lifted up onto her knees, he has to tip his head up to look her in the eye. Time seems to slow to a crawl. His heart hammers against his ribs like it’s trying to dash itself to pieces.

Audrey hovers above him, haloed by the light of the lamp behind her, silhouetted in it. Her hands find his jaw. They’re small and soft and warm. She’s so warm. He forgets how to breathe. Over her shoulder, he can see Nathan watching them with the same stupid, thunderstruck expression he knows must be mirrored on his own face.

Audrey runs her thumb along the crest of his cheek.

“Can I kiss you?” She asks.

Duke’s beyond words. He’s forgotten them. He watches her wide-eyed and nods. And waits—like some princess in a fairytale. He’d laugh if he weren’t otherwise occupied.

Audrey kisses like she’s making up for lost time.

She presses forward and Duke makes a pathetic noise up against her mouth. His hands find her hips, then her waist, then her back—anything to pull her closer. For a moment, nothing in the world exists outside of the heat of her hand on his neck: the v of her thumb and forefinger cradling the base of his throat like it was always meant to fit there.

And then there’s Nathan.

The real Nathan—not the dream of a dream he’s spent the last week kissing. The real Nathan, who sits shy and uncomfortable and hopeful behind Audrey, who Duke catches staring.

Duke barely breaks the kiss. He sighs Nathan’s name right up against Audrey’s lips, reaching out almost mindlessly for him. God knows there isn’t enough room for the three of them on this couch. But Nathan’s hand finds his own and Duke hangs on like a lifeline.

For all the height and breadth of the world, nothing could ever be bigger than this—than them: this impossible little corner of destiny they’ve carved out for themselves.

Audrey pulls back and for just a moment, he chases her mouth like he’s been sucked into some impossible gravity. But then she goes and does something he doesn’t expect. She throws her arms around his neck, buries her face in the crook of his shoulder, and just—

Holds him.

The momentum and heat falls away, and it dips into something intimate and just a little heartbreaking. Something heavy, something unspoken, something huge and fragile as blown sugar. Duke lets go of the frantic, frenetic hurry of it all and tightens his arm around her waist.

Nathan meets his gaze over her shoulder and squeezes Duke’s fingers. He seems to search for something to say, but no words fit into the space.

They sit like that.

It could be half a second, it could be half an hour.

When he can’t stand the quiet anymore—can’t stand the undercurrent of his own neediness—he murmurs, “Nate,” his voice barely steady underneath him. “Come _here_.” He pulls pointedly on Nathan’s hand, even though he can’t feel it.

Nathan scrambles. All at once, he’s hurrying forward—stumbling off the couch until he’s on his knees on the floor beside them. He doesn’t need to be asked twice. He takes Duke’s face in his hands and drags him closer and then they’re kissing—Nathan’s mouth landing at the corner of his own before finding center.

He kisses differently than the Nathan from the wish.

Duke realizes, with a dizzying wave of newfound desperation, that this is the first time the two of them have kissed in a decade. The second he has the real thing, it becomes painfully obvious that the other Nathan was built out of memory and daydream. But this— _this_ Nathan, he’s clumsy and honest and solid. He pushes forward so hard the wooden frame of the couch digs into Duke’s shoulder and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care at all.

Nathan whispers his name into the kiss—a soft and needy thing. Duke shivers so hard that even Audrey shakes with it.

“You can’t talk to me like that,” Duke murmurs, caught somewhere between a laugh and a moan. “You’re killing me.”

Audrey rings with a laughter that’s bright and loud and gorgeous. She wiggles out from under Duke’s arm so she can pepper Nathan’s mouth and jaw with small, sweet kisses: a balancing act between playful and intent.

Nathan melts under her touch. Duke’s reminded of the fact that Nathan can’t feel him the way he can feel her.

It stings. It does. But the feeling doesn’t linger. A real Nathan he can’t truly touch is still better than a dream.

Nathan rocks back on his heels and onto his feet, half-balanced as though he’s somehow gotten drunk on half a glass of cheap wine. He’s grinning and brazen when he grabs Duke by the front of the shirt and drags him up from the couch.

“Bed,” Nathan decides, already breathless.

Duke huffs an affectionate laugh and drapes his arms over Nathan’s shoulders. Hovering in his space, he watches Nathan watch his mouth when he purrs, “I like it when you’re bossy.”

Even in the low light, Nathan goes visibly red.

“Then how come you never _listen_?” Nathan asks.

Darting in for a kiss that Nathan’s only a little bit late in reciprocating, Duke teases, “What’s the fun in that?” Catching Audrey’s wrist and the front of Nathan’s shirt, he drags them both towards the bed.

They’re a mess of excitement and hurry and too many hands. Nathan shrugs out of his shirt in a rush. Audrey trips stepping out of her jeans. Duke only gets as far as unbuckling his belt before someone shoves him onto his back on the bed.

He lands with a bounce, breathless and eager. Before he can sit up, Audrey straddles his hips and begins less than patiently undoing his buttons.

“You know,” she tells him with a wink, “I never liked this shirt.”

“You’re right,” he agrees brightly, sitting up enough to help shrug it off his shoulders. “It looks better on your floor.”

She looks damn good like this: on top of him, wearing nothing but a button-up, her hair wild and mussed like a makeshift halo. The bottom hem of her shirt drapes over her thighs, just barely failing to hide the peek of lace trim along the edges of her underwear. Duke glides his hands along the insides of her thighs, high enough that she rolls her hips to chase the pressure of his thumbs.

Nathan appears at Audrey’s back, all broad shoulders and sharp angles. He takes an agonizingly long time kissing up the line of her neck, drawing it out until she and Duke both moan from it. His hands sneak under her shirt. Duke can see the shape of his fingers through her blouse as they travel the curve of her ribs to her breasts.

“You next,” he whispers against the crest of her jaw.

Twisting around to look at him, Audrey radiates a smug kind of mischief. Duke loves this side of her.

“You think you get to tell me what to do?” She asks Nathan with a quirk of her brow.

Duke’s grin barely fits on his face. “Speaking of someone who never listens,” he singsongs. “Looks like you’ve got a full-blown mutiny on your hands, Wuornos.”

Nathan makes a big show of sighing and rolling his eyes, but Duke doesn’t think he’s ever seen the poor sap look happier in his entire life.

And that’s—

Wow.

Okay.

That’s something, isn’t it?

“If you want it off, then take it off me,” she tells Nathan. Her tone lands just short of an order, but he still reacts to the words like a struck lightning rod. He forgoes buttons entirely, dragging the hem up over her head and tossing it aside in a hurry.

She smiles and leans back against his chest, into his touch. “Attaboy,” she teases. Reaching back, she tangles her fingers in his hair and drags him over her shoulder for a kiss.

Duke levers himself upright so he can mouth along the newly exposed curve of her neck. Hands trailing behind her, he unclasps her bra in one smooth, easy motion. For whatever reason, it inspires her to break the kiss and melt into a bright, delighted laugh.

Abandoning the bra with the rest of their clothes, she trails her fingers up the center of his chest.

“Should have guessed you’d know your way around a bra,” she hums playfully.

He understands the implication but he simply shrugs, watching her with a serene expression when he drawls, “Had an ex-girlfriend who liked when I put on hers.” He breaks on a wolfish little grin. “So yeah, I figured it out.”

Eyebrows raised, she looks him up and down in a way that’s transparent. “I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

Leaning forward, his lips ghost against her ear when he whispers, “I look killer in lace.”

Audrey sucks in the smallest, almost inaudible gasp. Nathan, on the other hand, moans loud and unabashed. Duke’s gaze flits to him over Audrey’s shoulder.

“Yeah?” He taunts warmly. “You liked that?”

“Shut up,” Nathan groans, even if they both know he doesn’t mean it. “You aren’t allowed to talk anymore.”

Duke beams up at him. “When has that stopped me?”

“Never,” Audrey confirms for them both before sliding off his lap. She shifts behind him and drags her nails up either side of his spine. Her mouth finds the crest of his shoulder.

Without her on top of him, he sits perched at the edge of the bed, Nathan standing half-dressed between his knees, the both of them gawking.

It’s been ages since he was allowed to want this. Even in the wish, the unreality of it soured everything. But here, in this room, with just the three of them, he doesn’t feel an ounce of guilt. He tugs Nathan closer by the belt, moving slow and just short of reverent when he works it from its buckle. Nathan watches with his hands hovered in the air between them.

Duke makes the decision for him. He tips forward, forehead landing softly against Nathan’s chest, and Nathan cards his fingers through his hair.

Duke lets out a breath he’s been holding for years.

Staring at the flush-pinked skin in front of him, Duke thinks of the picture hanging on the wall of the Second Chance That Never Was. He thinks of the red-purple scars running the length of his chest, fresh and new and vibrant. You’d hardly see them, now, if you didn’t know what you were looking for. Hands framing Nathan’s ribs, he rubs his thumb absently back and forth across the bump of the scar.

“You look so good, Nate,” he murmurs against his sternum.

Nathan can’t feel his own body; Duke wonders if he even _knows_ that he shivers in response.

Seemingly at a loss for words, Nathan instead cradles the back of Duke’s head and drags him into a kiss. It’s less clumsy than the ones that came before: heated and slow and focused. It occurs to Duke that Nathan’s trying to kiss like he can feel it—that he’s watching and listening for every cue Duke gives him and returning it in kind.

This time, Duke’s the one who shivers.

Nathan can only feel Audrey, but he wants them both. Even when Duke can’t give him what she can. And that matters.

While Duke tips helplessly into the kiss, Audrey fits up against his back. She runs her fingers down his arms, tucking her hands underneath his own against Nathan’s ribs. She hooks her chin over his shoulder. She mimics the way he ran his thumb along the line of the scar.

“He’s so gentle with you, Nathan.”

They both break the kiss on a gasp.

As Audrey moves her hands over Nathan’s skin, Duke trails behind her. It isn’t quite the same as Nathan reacting to his touch directly, but it isn’t nearly as different as he would have expected it to be. Nathan arching into their hands, either way.

“It’s sweet,” Audrey teases, her voice all warm and honeyed, “the way you two dance around each other.”

Nathan chuckles softly. He blinks his eyes open like a man surfacing from a dream. Dazed and off-balance, he meets Audrey’s gaze over Duke’s shoulder.

“You should see the way he looks at you,” Nathan tells her.

Duke has to bite down on the whimper that almost escapes his mouth.

“Tease me later,” he groans, reaching back to tangle his fingers in Audrey’s hair. “Touch me _now_.”

Audrey huffs a soft little laugh up against the hinge of his jaw. “Sir yes sir,” she hums playfully, and it sounds so patently absurd coming from her mouth that all three of them bubble into laughter.

Duke uses the break in momentum as a chance to turn around her grasp. His hands find her waist and he pushes her back onto the mattress.

Her laugh melts into a gasp: this gorgeous, unguarded, impossible sound that reverberates through him. The moment he’s on top of her, her legs wind around his hips, her arms around his shoulders. She drags him closer until there’s no daylight between their bodies. She leads and he follows. Her teeth catch his bottom lip, and he moans.

Behind him, he hears the clink of Nathan’s belt buckle as he steps out of his pants. The bed dips under his knees and he leans his weight against the small of Duke’s back on hands that feel impossibly hot.

“Duke,” he urges, his voice low and breathless in a way that Duke feels down his spine and up the insides of his thighs. “Why do you still have pants on?”

An excellent question.

“I need more hands,” Duke laughs, helpless in front of the vastness of his own desire. His attention pulls in too many directions, never settling anywhere long enough to remember something as rote and mundane as finishing undressing.

Blinking up at him, Audrey bites her lip. She’s beautiful in a way that borders on unbearable: hair fanned out and golden around her head, face flushed, eyes bright. She looks like every good dream Duke’s ever had, ever wants to have again.

“I have an idea,” she whispers conspiratorially. Pushing him gently up, she wiggles out from underneath him. “Hurry up and take your clothes off.”

It’s posed more as a tease than an order, but something about the way she says it—or maybe, just something about _her_ —has the both of them stumbling out of what’s left of their clothes in a comical hurry.

Audrey, on the other hand, makes no hurry of stepping out of her panties. She doesn’t make a show of it either, but she knows they’re watching. It pinks her cheeks and deepens her grin. Stepping back, she looks the both of them up and down appreciatively.

(And for a moment, just a fraction of a fraction of a second, the hunger in her eyes terrifies him. It digs up the memory of the dusty, shadowed corners of the Holloway house and the crooked caricature of herself living inside of it. But as quickly as it comes, it’s gone again: the nightmare chased away by the glow of her smile and the bashfulness behind her bravado. Fear’s icy fingers can’t take root. He melts under the shine of her, like snow in spring.)

“Nathan, come here,” she says. As he kneels onto the bed, she guides him to the pillows, pushing him on his back. At first, his knees drift together almost self-consciously as he glances back and forth between the two of them. She runs her palm soothingly down his stomach.

“Nathan,” she encourages softly—adoringly. Just a little bit filthy. “Don’t you want us to see you?”

Exhaling a wobbly laugh, Nathan allows his legs to shift open. Audrey fits herself between them with a grace that steals the breath from Duke’s lungs. For a moment, he forgets about himself entirely. Everything narrows down to those two—the people he’s loved so much and so long and so hard that the word itself pales in comparison to the feeling.

He watches Audrey kiss along the inside of Nathan’s thigh, inspiring a bitten down groan. Nathan can’t sit still. He tips into her every touch—keeps opening his mouth as if to speak or gasp or beg, but no sound escapes. When she draws the flat of her palm up against the seam of his cunt and rocks the heel of her hand gently against his clit, he sucks in a startled gasp and throws an arm over his face. Whether it’s to muffle his voice or hide his expression, Duke isn’t sure. What it doesn’t hide is the desperate, needy rock of his hips towards her touch.

Duke’s voice comes out cracked and raw when he rasps, “You said something about a plan?”

Audrey startles back to herself, as though pulled from a dream. Duke knows the feeling. He’s spent the better part of a week lost in a dream about Nathan, himself.

Audrey only leaves Nathan long enough to dig a condom out of the bedside table and press it into Duke’s open palm. “The plan,” she says, winking at him, “is anything you do to me, I’ll do to him.” Her coy demeanor drops when she glances down at Nathan and genuinely asks, “If that’s okay?”

Nathan lets out a muffled whimper from behind the bend of his elbow. “Yeah,” he groans. “Yeah, definitely okay.”

Settling on the bed behind her, Duke reaches around Audrey to pry Nathan’s arm away from his face. “What?” He jokes, warm and soft, when Nathan blinks doe-eyed up at him. “Like I’m just gonna _not_ look at you?”

Audrey’s hand lays almost demurely against the crest of Nathan’s thigh, but that doesn’t stop him from rocking helplessly in the direction of her touch at the suggestion. “This isn’t fair,” he gasps, more air than laugh. “I’m outnumbered.”

Duke doesn’t think he imagines the way Nathan seems to flush all the way down to his chest.

It’s no mystery what the both of them want. He wants it, too. None of them are exactly champions of patience, and this thing between them has already been building far too long. Even so, he can’t resist the impulse to take his time just for a moment: to run his hands up Audrey’s sides just for the pleasure of watching her mirror the motion with Nathan.

When Duke bends to press a kiss between her shoulder blades, she dips down to leave one in the center of Nathan’s chest. Nuzzling the back of her neck, he reaches around in front of her and drags his nails up the inside of her thighs. She gets so caught up in her own shiver that it takes her a moment to remember to mimic it. When she finally does, Nathan sucks in a pinched little laugh and lolls his head on the pillow.

“This is torture,” he rumbles, voice warm.

“Torture, huh?” Duke hums. He traces his fingers featherlight against Audrey’s cunt and moans against her shoulder at how slick he finds her.

“Jesus, Audrey,” he teases against her shoulder. “Is he as wet as you are?”

She chuckles and Nathan moans.

“Almost.”

All three of them gasp at once—albeit for different reasons—when Duke sinks two fingers inside her. She rocks almost mindlessly back onto his fingers, head pillowed against Nathan’s stomach while she does the same to him.

Nathan practically convulses beneath her. One hand buried in her hair, the other desperately clinging to the headboard, his knees bracket her body—trying to squeeze together around her.

“Fuck,” he pants.

“Oh shit,” Duke murmurs. “Been a while for you, huh Nate?”

“Shut up,” Nathan groans. He squeezes his eyes closed and rolls his hips in a way that’s helpless and frantic.

He’s always so tightly wound, so specifically and rigidly controlled. There’s something beautiful to seeing him like this. Judging by the smug little humming sound Audrey makes, Duke would guess she’s enjoying the view just as much as he is.

“Don’t make him wait,” she purrs over her shoulder and Duke grins.

“You mean don’t make _you_ wait,” he teases. “Which one of you’s the real impatient one?”

“ _Me_ ,” Nathan insists as he melts into a thin moan.

Audrey looks over her shoulder at him. She says his name and it sounds different than how he’s used to—all hot and soft and sugared, all eager and impatient. He buries his face in the crook of her neck.

“Yes ma’am,” he whispers in a way that’s meant to be a joke but somehow makes them all shiver.

And then there’s no more waiting. He eases slowly inside her and she makes a noise so sweet, he feels it rattle every rung of his ribs. She says his name again, and then a third, and then another. Like a prayer. Like a hymn.

He’s never been holy before.

Hooking his chin over her shoulder, he finds a steady rhythm, one she can match with her fingers. He meets Nathan’s half-focused gaze and smiles sweetly down at him. Nathan can’t seem to bear to break that eye contact long enough to actually look for Duke’s hand to hold it. Instead, he gropes clumsily around his periphery until they tangle together in a mess of mismatched fingers.

Duke means to say something, but he can’t find the words.

Instead, he trails his free hand underneath Audrey to circle her clit. Her hips stutter like she can’t decide where to go.

“I knew you’d be good with your hands,” she laughs, the sound colored pink and pretty by a moan.

Meanwhile, Nathan grips Duke’s fingers tight enough to hurt, but he wouldn’t dream of asking him to stop. Turns out that desperate is a good look on Nathan.

As if reading his thoughts, Audrey shifts lower. Three fingers inside him, she drags the flat of her tongue up the underside of Nathan’s clit before wrapping her lips around it. He makes a thin, wounded noise. His eyes roll in his head, fluttering closed. When he blinks them open again and finds Duke staring down at him, he goes even more flushed and doe-eyed than Duke would have thought possible.

Turning his face into the pillow with a rush of breathless laughter, Nathan groans, “Jesus, how the fuck am I supposed to keep up with _both_ of you?”

Rolling his eyes playfully, Duke teases. “ _Keep up_ , he says. We’re doing all the work.” Audrey hums in mischievous agreement.

But Nathan isn’t listening. He’s breathing goes erratic. He rocks down towards Audrey’s mouth with a ruined sound, head thrown back, whole body taut and electric. Stammering out a string of curses, he chases the friction in a way that borders on brainless.

“You’re close, aren’t you, Nate?” Duke whispers as he rocks forward hard into Audrey. “Already?”

Nathan’s past the point of witty comebacks. He sucks in a thin little gasp before going shivery and silent, every muscle drawn up tight before it relaxes. It’s gorgeous. He’s gorgeous. Both of them are.

Audrey lifts up from Nathan’s cunt, brushing the curtain of hair away from her face and aiming a smile at him that Duke can just barely see from this angle. She keeps the friction off his clit, but her fingers move inside him just a half-second out of sync with Duke’s rhythm. Nathan shudders with each push.

“You aren’t tapping out already, are you?” She purrs.

Even Duke shivers from that one.

“N-no,” Nathan stammers. He clutches the pillow above his head in a vice grip, chest heaving with breath. “Don’t stop.”

Duke doesn’t think he can take much more of this—the both of them, their moans, their flushed skin. He wraps his arms around her, burying his face between her shoulder blades as his rhythm starts to falter and hurry. Nathan moans before she does and there’s something unbearable about that.

“Duke,” he groans, “C’mon.”

It doesn’t take much more than that. He rocks forward, muffling a soft, helpless sound against Audrey’s skin when everything crashes together, and his thoughts vanish—slip away from him like smoke. All he knows is the heat of their bodies and the way she sounds when she pants his name.

He comes down slowly. Braced above her, his arm shakes when he forces it to take most of his weight. Panting against the curve of her spine, he stays unmoving inside of her while he circles her clit. She finds herself the center of their attentions, Nathan rolling her nipples between his fingers while Duke eases her up to the edge.

She crests the other side of it with a soft whine, burying her face in Nathan’s chest and shaking under Duke’s hands. The two of them lock eyes over her shoulder, wearing matching, awestruck expressions.

For a moment, the room feels like a held breath. Duke wonders—with a sinking feeling—if the three of them will be nearly as okay now that the heat of it all has started to dissipate. He wonders what he’s supposed to do now, wonders if he ought to save himself the embarrassment and get dressed. He knows it isn’t fair or logical. He knows they told him they wanted this. But hearing it and allowing himself to believe it stand on two different sides of a dangerous line.

Audrey moves first. She sinks down onto the bed in a graceless heap, her breathing hard, a dreamy smile on her face. Still half-tangled together with Nathan, she beams up at Duke.

“C’mere,” she murmurs.

The rising dread unwinds from his chest. He dips down, cradling her face in one hand when he kisses her. The muscles in his arms and shoulders tremble from so long spent supporting his weight, but it’s worth pushing through for a few more seconds up against her mouth. It’s worth a few more when Nathan catches him by the back of the head and drags him over to steal a kiss of his own.

For the first time, Duke thinks he might be settling into the idea of home.

* * *

**AUDREY**

No one wants to untangle long enough to clean up. They spend ages trading lazy kisses. Audrey likes being the center of their attentions as much as she likes the opportunity to watch them move around her. There’s something beautiful about them, the way they’re rediscovering a long-discarded intimacy. Nathan’s trouble puts a wrinkle in everything, but not so badly as she thought it might.

It feels like the beginning of something. She tries to hold onto that when the awful little voice at the back of her head whispers about the Hunter and tries to convince her it isn’t a beginning, but an end.

She knocked from her thoughts when Duke returns to bed from the bathroom. He plops down heavily enough to bounce the both of them just a little and Audrey laughs and crawls over him to put him in the middle.

“Alright,” Duke puffs with a playfully exaggerated exhaustion, “You two officially wore me out.”

Curling up against his chest, Audrey aims a smug grin up at him. “Aw, Duke,” she purrs, voice pitched low and taunting. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

She means it as a joke—something dumb and lighthearted and off-the-cuff. But as soon as the words are out of her mouth, the smile drops off of Duke’s face and is replaced with something shocked and awful. Audrey’s stomach twists.

“Hey, don’t, uh—” Duke’s voice comes out sounding canned, like he’s aiming for humor but falls just short of it. “Don’t do that.”

“I’m sorry.”

Guilt feels humid and oily under Audrey’s skin, like a weight bearing down on her. She wonders what awful memory she unearthed. She wonders, often, about the copy of herself from the wish—the one Duke won’t talk about. _Evil_ , he had called her.

Before she can pull away and give him space, he cradles the back of her head and draws her close and presses a kiss to her hair.

“It’s okay,” he promises. “I’m okay.”

She tucks her head under his chin, listens to the heady thump of his heartbeat, and wonders if that evil lives inside of her, now—sleeping, quiet, coiled, like a storm building off the coast.

If she could hurt Duke even when she loves him, what would she be capable of if she didn’t?

What did he see in that house?

“You’re safe,” she promises. Duke chuckles, but not in a mean way—just a soft, tired, affectionate sound.

“Yeah,” he agrees as he rubs her back. Another arm—Nathan’s, she thinks—drapes heavily across her waist.

She props herself up just a little, head pillowed on her arms on Duke’s chest, so she can look at them. The future’s approaching fast, but it isn’t here yet. For now, this corner of the world belongs to her and nothing can take it.

Duke lays on his back between them, watching her with a warm expression that seems to see straight through to the core of her. Nathan lays curled against Duke’s side, his nose buried in his neck, his eyes closed. If she listens very carefully, she can hear him taking deep, self-indulgent breaths.

It makes her smile.

She runs her fingers up Nathan’s arm and teases, “What’s his shampoo smell like?”

Duke snorts and tugs on a lock of her hair as if in retaliation. She half expects Nathan to bow up with embarrassment, but he’s loose and relaxed. He nuzzles even closer and takes a cartoonish, exaggerated whiff. Duke makes an exasperated face.

Nathan hums thoughtfully.

“Citrus,” he decides. He nestles even closer; this time, he must brush somewhere ticklish, because Duke shrugs suddenly backwards with a muffled peep. It isn’t nearly enough to deter Nathan. He buries a hand in Duke’s hair to hold him in place and Audrey can _feel_ Duke melt into the touch.

“Something grassy, too,” Nathan mumbles. “Verbena?”

Rolling his eyes, Duke turns his head and catches Nathan in a kiss that lingers. “You’re good at that,” he teases against Nathan’s mouth.

He offers Duke a puppyish grin. “Could probably tell you what’s in your cologne, too, if you hadn’t just sweat it all off.”

“Mm, a game for another day,” Duke hums. He flops back against the pillow and runs his fingers absently through Audrey’s hair. She tips into the touch.

 _This is how it’s supposed to be_ , she thinks.

“Hey,” Duke says suddenly. He turns his head to look at Nathan. “What’d the other me say before he left?”

Audrey perks up, peeking at Nathan over the pillow of her arms. “Yeah,” she agrees. “You turned bright red.”

Nathan goes an awfully pretty shade of pink all over again. He grumbles, rolling onto his back and covering his face with a weak little whisper of a laugh.

“He said—uh,” Nathan starts, stuttering to a stop and winding up to try again. “Well. He, uh, said that you were… you know. In love with me. But that you weren’t gonna make the first move and I had to do it.”

Duke puffs a wounded little chuckle. “The _nerve_ of this guy,” he mutters, but Audrey notices he’s starting to look a little flushed, too.

She beams at both of them. “I mean,” she drawls, “he was right.”

Duke rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but he keeps beating me to the punch.”

He looks up at her, then, with an expression so warm and earnest it shocks her into an awed silence. He cradles her jaw in his hand and draws his calloused thumb through the soft hairs at her temple.

“At least I get to be the one to tell _you_ ,” he murmurs.

Audrey swallows, her mouth gone suddenly dry. “Tell me what?”

Duke smiles. It’s that same gentle, meaningful smile she missed so much while he was the temporary. A smile like a secret well kept. A smile like a fireplace in winter. “You know ‘what’,” he murmurs.

“All that,” Audrey teases, but her voice sounds taut and hopeful even to her own ears, “And you’re not gonna actually say it?”

“Yeah, I’ll say it.” His gaze drops to her mouth and then back up. He searches her expression, and she wonders what he sees. “I’ll do anything you need me to. Hunt down your past. And fight your future.”

Audrey feels like a thousand moths have been set loose in her chest. The moment goes shivery and hyperfocused. She waits like a held breath.

“I love you, Audrey Parker.” He tucks her hair behind her ear with a soft, muted chuckle. “But like I said, you already knew that.”

Audrey surges forward. She braces herself with hands on the pillow on either side of Duke’s head, kissing him hard and focused. His hands find her waist and grip just a little too hard and it’s _good_. It’s perfect.

“Yeah,” she agrees against his mouth. She’s smiling. They’re both smiling. They’re smiling so wide the kiss stops fitting together right. “I knew.”

She mirrors him, tucking his hair behind his ear just as gently as he did for her. “I love you,” she tells him. “You make it easy.”

“I mean, he _doesn’t_ ,” Nathan chimes in with a playful grin. He looks at Duke the same way he looks at her—like they hung the moon in the sky. Like all the lights in all the heavens can’t match the glow of this room, this moment, this bed.

“Now, Nate,” Duke retorts. “We all know you could never resist a challenge.”

Almost bashful, Nathan looks away and mumbles, “More like I could never resist _you_.” And Duke crows with triumphant laughter that makes her heart soar.

She notices that they don’t say it to each other. She wonders if they’re saving it, waiting until they’ve untangled all the complicated baggage dredged up by the wish—or if they’ve known each other so long and so well, that they don’t need to say the words out loud anymore. Looking at them, there’s no doubt they love each other.

But she wishes she could hear it. She wishes they would give each other the same surreal, impossible joy they’ve given her.

But the moment ends and the tone of the conversation changes, and eventually the quiet love confessions are left in the rearview in favor of swapping anecdotes from what Duke missed while he was in the wish. And even though the talk and the laughter, Audrey aches in a way she can’t quite put a name to.

If she does have to walk into that barn, if they really can’t save her, she needs them to be okay.

Nathan falls asleep first. Audrey finds herself restless. She stares up at the ceiling and tries to remind herself that worrying about the Hunter is only stealing this moment out from under herself.

Nathan starts to snore, and Duke’s been quiet so long she thinks he must have gone under, too. She’s about to surrender to her own restlessness and sneak out from under the covers when Duke shifts to look at her.

“You sure this is real?” He whispers, so quiet she’s not even entirely sure she was meant to hear it.

She rolls onto her side to get a better look at him. His shoulders are relaxed, but a certain uneasy tension pulls at the corners of his mouth. Again, he tries to make a joke, but fumbles it. “I didn’t, like, make another wish without noticing, did I?”

It must seem that way, from his side of things. His reaction only proves to her even more just how much they have to make up for, how badly they need to do better. For all of their sakes.

Her hand finds his in the dark. She tangles their fingers together.

“None of this is new,” she tells him. She runs her thumb in gentle circles across his knuckles. Offering a shameful sigh, she admits, “I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse. But—I think we were always gonna figure it out, eventually, you know? The wish trouble and the temporary just kind of,” she bites down on a grin, “Sped up a lot of shit.”

Looking up at him, she adds a gentle and playful, “I’m sorry that it took magic and mortal peril to get us talking about our feelings.”

“Eh,” Duke jokes with a shrug. “Pretty par for the course with both of you.”

Audrey moves to retaliate with a tickle and is only stopped by Duke’s frantically stage-whispered, “Stop! He’s asleep, he’s asleep!”

She relents. The two of them settle in quiet for a moment.

“And _did_ you?” Duke asks seemingly out of nowhere.

“Did we what?”

“Figure your shit out?”

Propping up on one elbow, she asks, “We’re here, aren’t we?”

“Sure,” Duke agrees, pleasant and calm. “For now.”

That same dread drops heavy into her chest again. “Duke,” she urges. “We told you. This is what we want.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “You told me.” He’s quiet for a moment. “Words are good,” he says finally. He casts her a meaningful look too mesmerizing to look away from. He’s gentle when he adds, “But they’re just words.”

He runs a hand through her hair. “Can’t patch a sinking ship with promises.”

“We _aren’t_ sinking,” she insists.

He nods and glances up at the ceiling. Nathan snores softly against his chest. “We were, I think,” he whispers, “for a while there.”

Audrey swallows hard against the sudden ache. “I know,” she agrees. “But I won’t let us.”

There’s still the question of the Hunter looming over all of their heads. But they’ll keep looking. They’ll keep fighting.

They’re quiet for a long while. Finally settling back into the crook of his arm, Audrey asks, “Is that why you haven’t told him?” She runs her knuckles gently up and down Duke’s stomach. “Because they’re just words?”

Duke swallows. She sees him glance down at him. “Nathan knows how I feel about him,” Duke murmurs.

It’s not an answer. Not really. They both know it. Exhaling on a sigh, Duke says. “I don’t know. Man, you carry a torch for a guy for twenty years and it—it gets this whole mythology around it. You know? It gets too big. And I can’t—” He starts, only to get tangled in the words and stumble to a stop. His voice drops even lower when he adds, “I can’t say it. Feels too much like I’m— _asking_ for something. I can’t expect that.”

“He loves you,” Audrey promises, more sure of it than she’s ever been sure of anything.

“I know that,” Duke whispers, honest in a way that cracks down the center. “I just—don’t think I can ask him to meet me in the middle when it’s… that much.” He sighs. “Sorry, this sounds stupid.”

She knows she can’t build this bridge for them, even if she wants to. They have to reach out on their own. The best she can do is encourage them and hope.

“But you do love him,” she prompts, drawing nonsense shapes on his chest with her finger.

“Of course,” Duke says, puffing a laugh that’s all breath. “Always have.”

As if on cue, Nathan nuzzles sleepily against Duke’s collarbone. “Love you, too,” he mumbles—soft and drowsy and vulnerable in a way they never get to see him. “Always have.”

Audrey wonders when, exactly, he woke up.

All at once, her fear of the future fades into the background. It’s the three of them, now. And she doesn’t believe that there’s a single force in Haven that they can’t face down together.

* * *

**DUKE**

Duke doesn’t even realize he’s whistling while he makes the Gull’s lunch special until Alice teases him about it. She and Nora grin at him with knowing expressions.

“You sure they sent back the right one?” Nora asks, loudly, out of the corner of her mouth. She’s trying to hide her grin but not particularly hard. “I think we might still have a bodysnatcher.”

“Yeah, yeah, yuck it up,” Duke drawls, waving them off with a smile. “I have a delivery to make, so you two comedians get to handle the lunch rush.”

Alice lets out a put-upon sigh, but it isn’t enough to stop her from singsonging, “Making lunch for someone special?”

He grins and flicks a small dollop of sour cream at her. “None of your business.”

After a shocked gasp and only mild complaining, the both of them return to their posts and let him finish cooking in (relative) peace. He keeps a lid on his whistling, after that, but he knows there’s an extra spring in his step and frankly, he doesn’t care who sees it.

Duke pulls up to the hospital with a takeout bag in tow. It’s been a while since he’s had a reason to stop by, but he still winds his way down to Gloria’s office without needing to stop and ask for directions. She’s busily typing something into her computer, her back to the door, when he announces himself by dropping the takeout onto her desk with a soft thump.

Turning over her shoulder, she spots first the food, then Duke.

Her voice gone suddenly pinched, she says, “Took you long enough.” All at once, she’s out of her chair, yanking him into a hug so tight it’s hard to breathe around.

“Hey,” he laughs, startled by the intensity. He rubs her back. “Nathan said you just about burned down the station looking for me.” He pulls back to grin at her. “And, frankly, you should have.”

Rolling her eyes, she swats gently at his chest and settles back into her chair. “You know how half those idiots are,” she grumbles. “Couldn’t find their own ass with a flashlight.” She folds her hands over her stomach and looks up at him with a wry smile. “Listen kid, I tried to give you your space but if you’d taken any longer to come visit me, I’d have torn down your front door with a hatchet.”

“A hatchet?” Duke asks, eyebrows raised.

Gloria shrugs a shoulder. “I’d have knocked first.”

Laughing, Duke shakes his head. “Comforting.” He pushes the takeout bag closer to her. “Here. A peace offering.”

It’s comfortable here, in Gloria’s office—even surrounded by all the strange and macabre trappings of her profession. He’s always felt comfortable with Gloria. She’s a little rough around the edges, but in the best way. She doesn’t put up with his bullshit, but she’s never treated him like a criminal, either. Even when he—by all accounts—was one.

She pulls the takeout closer to her but doesn’t open it. Instead, she aims one of those knowing, watchful expressions at him. Her tone remains pointedly light when she comments, “Dwight said that house put you through the wringer.

Duke winces at the thought of the post-rescue breakdown that Dwight and Jordan were, unfortunately, privy to. Crossing his arms, Duke unconsciously mirrors Gloria’s pose, slumping against the back of his chair across from her. “Well, he’s not wrong.”

“Tell me true, kiddo,” she says, “You doing okay?”

Duke lets out a sigh and the tension in his body leaves with it. “Yeah,” he says, and finds that the answer’s honest. “I am.” The wish messed with his head, but here—on the other side of it—he has a kind of clarity he isn’t sure he could have found without it.

It’s a little cliché, honestly. But he finds himself treasuring his real relationships a lot more now that he understands the alternative. He spent too much of his life telling himself he was on his own, even when it stopped being true. He pushed people away, sabotaged relationships, positioned himself as a loner.

But he made more friends than he thought he had. He belongs here.

Gloria leans forward to pat his knee. “It’s good to have you back. That trouble’s a nasty one.” Sighing, she amends, “Though I can’t imagine the real deal’s been exactly gentle with you, either, knowing this town.”

Duke chuckles, shaking his head. His thoughts wander to date he has planned for tonight—the three of them set to meet out by the beach just before sunset—and he smiles down at his lap.

“You might be surprised,” he laughs a little dreamily, not expecting her to get the joke.

But she just casts him another one of those knowing grins. “So,” she says, “they finally got their shit together, did they?”

Duke’s eyebrows lift towards his hairline. “Or maybe you wouldn’t be surprised,” he corrects.

“Oh, sweetheart, you’re all about as subtle as a brick to the head,” she drawls. “I’m old, not stupid.” She regards him for a moment, her expression gone warm and gentle. For just a fraction of a second, she reminds him so much of Angela—or maybe the other way around—that it sucks the air out of his lungs.

It still aches, just a little, losing her. Even though he never really had her. But Angela was more Gloria than she wasn’t—the mom he wished he’d had instead of the one he got.

He can’t ever have that version of his childhood.

But he has Gloria. He has her sharp wit and her exasperated smile and the gentle look in her eye. He wouldn’t trade her for any dream.

She raps her knuckles against the desk, pulling him out of his thoughts.

“They’re good to you?” Gloria asks—a familiar question, even if it’s not familiar from her mouth.

Duke ducks a smile. Staring down at his lap, he swallows around the lump in his throat. _Yeah, Ma,_ he almost says, and has to stop himself.

“Yeah,” he answers. “They are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's a wrap, folks! Thank you, again, for reading. This was the longest and most ambitious writing project I've undertaken in--years, honestly. And the biggest thing I've written for fandom ever. I know Haven's a pretty quiet fandom these days, but it really would mean a whole heck of a lot to me if you dropped in to let me know what you thought or how it made you feel. This fic is close to my heart for a lot of reasons. More than anything, I just hope you had a good time in this space with me. This has been a really fun, really rewarding ride and it's a little surreal to be putting a pin in it.
> 
> Here's to one hell of a godforsaken year. And here's to you. Thanks. ♥


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